Effect of academic discipline on technology acceptance

One of the most dramatic changes in the last three decades has been the rapid development of Information Technology (IT). IT has gradually found its way into business, industry and into the classroom through computers and computer-related technologies. But, despite the heavy investment in IT, it has been observed that the existence of these technologies does not automatically translate to their acceptance. Hence, many models and theories have tried to explain the contributing factors in technology acceptance; however, most of these models and theories have focused on technology-related factors like ease of use, perceived usefulness and facilitating conditions. In this paper, we present user's academic discipline as a non technology-related factor that affects ITacceptance. We formulated a new model of technology acceptance — Academic Discipline based Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (ADUTAUT) adapted from UTAUT model. We validated the model on Electronic Library System (ELS) using 116 students of different academic disciplines with regards to their acceptance of the ELS and the factors that influences acceptance. The Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis shows that the variables influencing acceptance vary between the three academic disciplines considered (Art and Science, Engineering and Social Science.). This means that different academic discipline may have different effects on users' technology acceptance. This study is useful to school managers, bank managers and other IS designers that make decisions about IS that is used by people of different academic discipline.

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