Exploring Student Perceptions of an Electronic Textbook: A TAM Perspective

The overall aim of this study was to add to the sparsely researched field of e-book usage and acceptance and examine student perceptions of a required e-book in seven sections of an introductory MIS course. Using constructs from the general technology acceptance model (TAM) as well as web usability items pertaining to navigational ease and visually pleasing design, the study shows that both ease of understanding and ease of finding are significant predictors of student perceptions of e-book ease of use and usefulness. Usefulness and ease of understanding were found to be significantly inversely related to students recommending to adopt a hard copy version of the textbook in future semesters. The findings highlight that appearance, on-screen design and navigation are crucial for the success of electronic textbooks, and need to be addressed by e-book publishers and developers. Usefulness was the only significant predictor of students recommending the same e-book for future classes and hoping to use an e-book in other classes.

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