Student Acceptance of University Web Portals

Abstract

A large number of university web portal's content and design do not meet today's students' expectations and requirements. To address students' expectations, universities spend millions on the redesign and maintenance of their web portals which students say are inadequate and lack basic services. To this end, this study explored the factors that influence students' acceptance of university web portals. It proposed an extension of Davis's (1989) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by adding three user related external constructs in it. A total of 429 usable responses were collected from university students through a web survey. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results of the study revealed that website quality, perceived self-efficacy, and facilitating conditions were significant in explaining students' use of university web portals and therefore, indicated that the extended TAM has sufficient explanatory power to explain students' usage of university web portals. In conclusion, important theoretical and practical implications of the results are presented for both researchers and practitioners.