Measuring university students’ technostress in technology-enhanced learning: Scale development and validation

Abstract

With technology-enhanced learning playing an increasingly important role in higher education, university students are enjoying unprecedented benefits while likely experiencing technostress due to increased requirements and different academic expectations of technology-enhanced learning. This study aimed to develop a psychometric scale to measure university students’ levels of technostress in technology-enhanced learning. An initial technostress scale was developed drawing on the person-environment fit theory and prior research on technostress. In total 620 students were recruited from two public universities in China. Three rounds of study were performed to validate the initial technostress scale using factor analysis, the Rasch model, and multilevel linear regression. The finalised technostress scale with 8 items demonstrated robust psychometric properties, including high internal consistency, validity, uni-dimensionality, and measurement invariance across students of different demographics. The development of the technostress scale is an important step in identifying maladapted students and preserving their wellbeing so as to increase their constructive and active participation in technology-enhanced learning.