Learning technology acceptance and continuance intention among business students: The mediating effects of confirmation, flow, and engagement

Abstract

The emergence of mobile applications has opened the door to a new kind of information and communication technology tool and educational support which is vital for students’ positive learning behaviours. The aims of this study were to examine the effects of three mediators (confirmation, flow, and student engagement) on students’ learning technology acceptance and information systems continuance intention, and to explore the functions of these variables in the mediating process between learning technology acceptance and continuance intention. Using PROCESS macro program where the bootstrap confidence interval was adopted, a parallel multiple mediation model and a serial multiple mediation model were tested. Two of the three proposed hypotheses were supported. Business students’ confirmation and flow, elicited by the m-learning app, were two mediating factors with high ratios (0.6655, 95% CI = 0.2635 to 0.6085) of the overall indirect effect to the total effect, which related to students’ decisions in continuous usages of the technology. We concluded that the continuous use of the m-learning app was driven not only by students’ flexible thinking skills in accepting new learning technology, but also by a set of cognitive attributes reflecting users’ positive experiences with the system. Implications for practice or policy: Business students who have positive mindsets for accepting new technology will try their best to overcome challenges of learning unfamiliar technologies. Business students’ confirmation and flow experience elicited by the m-learning app aids in understanding of their intention to continue using the system. Instructors must develop partnerships with instructional designers to enhance student confirmation, flow and engagement for better acceptance and continued use of mobile learning technologies.