An Empirical Study of the Factors that Impact Medical Representatives' Attitude toward the Intention to Use M-Learning for Career Development

The proliferation and popularity of mobile phone usage in Sri Lanka has created an untapped potential for educators and organizations. The very recent introduction of m-learning to the higher education sector of the country is set to exploit much of this opportunity, but there remains some doubt on the readiness of people toward this revolutionary distance learning method. This paper critically evaluates the factors that would affect the intention to use m-learning among medical representatives, and also intends to shed some light on the barriers that hold the pharmaceutical sector back from utilizing it as a training tool. A sample of 210 medical representatives was selected, from an urban population of 450. The instrument of data collection was a Likert scale questionnaire. Data analysis was carried out using the statistical software SPSS 16.0. Correlation studies, simple linear regression and one-way ANOVA tests were conducted to establish relationships and test hypotheses. The results supported past literature through ten of the hypotheses with the exception of perceived self-efficacy and present level of education, which were not found to bear an impact on the intention to use m-learning. This empirical study is a first of its kind in Sri Lanka, and hopes to contribute to the existing body of literature on technology acceptance, in addition to providing invaluable insights to the pharmaceutical, mobile telephony and education sectors of this country.