Student acceptance of intelligent tutoring systems during COVID-19: The effect of political influence

Abstract

Under the circumstance of COVID-19, online education has become an inevitable choice and a mainstream form of education in various countries. Intelligent Tutoring Systems ( ITSs ) are a critical category of a carrier of online education which refers to using Artificial Intelligence Technology ( AIT ) to realize distance teaching and learning through integrating multiple resources, assist teachers to implement online classes and help students learn courses online, etc. The target of this study is to examine the determinants that explain college students’ adoption of ITSs based on TRA and TAM under the era of COVID-19 in China.. This study targets college students who have used ITSs over the previous year to learn courses. In total, 590 valid samples were collected. Partial least squares ( PLS ) approach is employed to inspect the determinants of college students’ acceptance of using ITSs. The results of the analysis indicate that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, subjective norm, college students’ attitude and political influence significantly affect college students’ behavioral intention towards using ITSs. In addition, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and political influence also affect college students’ attitude toward using ITSs. And consisitent with previous research, perceived ease of use has a significant effects on perceived usefulness. This study enriches the TRA and TAM theories by incorporating a new variable political influence for researchers to consider in the future. In addition, it makes several suggestions for system developers to improve system functions regarding its ease of use and for content manufactures to pay attention to quality regarding usefulness. Recommendations are provided to colleges, universities and education authorities to rethink their roles in reforming online education through ITSs.