The Acceptance of Learning Management Systems and Video Conferencing Technologies: Lessons Learned from COVID-19

Abstract

During the outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, higher education institutions (HEIs) have shifted from traditional and blended learning approaches to a fully virtual course delivery. This research investigates the students' perceptions on remote learning through asynchronous learning management systems (LMS) and via synchronous video conferencing technologies like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom, among others. The data was gathered from a sample of 501 higher education students in a Southern European context. A survey questionnaire included measures that investigated the participants' acceptance of interactive technology to better understand their utilitarian motivations to use them. The findings suggest that the research participants accessed asynchronous content and interacted with online users, including with their course instructor, in real time. While there are a number of theoretical or opinion papers on the impact of COVID-19 on higher education services, currently, there are still a few empirical papers that shed light on the factors that are having an effect on the students' attitudes and intentions to utilize remote learning technologies. This contribution underlines the importance of maintaining ongoing, interactive engagement with students, and of providing them with appropriate facilitating conditions, to continue improving their learning journey.

Remote learning via video conferencing technologies: Implications for research and practice

“…Video conferencing technologies allow educators to follow up on their students' progress [ 18 , 99 ]. They facilitate online interactions, in real time, and enable them to obtain immediate feedback from their students.…”

“…Initially, this transition resulted in a number of challenges to students and instructors [ 17 ]. In many cases, educators were pressurized to utilize digital technologies including learning management systems (LMSs) as well as video conferencing programs [ 18 ]. Very often, they relied on their institutions’ Moodle or virtual learning environment software to share digital resources including videos, power point presentations and links to online notes.…”

“…Although, there are many contributions in academia that have focused on the students' acceptance of online technologies, in electronic learning (elearning) and/or mobile learning (mlearning) formats [ 31 ], in various contexts [ [32] , [33] , [34] , [35] ], currently, few studies investigated the students’ perceptions, attitudes and intentions to use synchronous video conferencing technologies [ 18 ]. For the time being, there are no studies that have used the same constructs that were employed in this research.…”

Pre-service Teachers' Use of General Social Networking Sites Linked to Current Scenarios: Nature and Characteristics

“…There is a vast theoretical foundation for analysing the use of educational technology in general and of social networks in particular. Davis ( 1986 ) based his work on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) by Fishbein and Ajzen ( 1975 ) and formulated the technology acceptance model (TAM; Althunibat, 2015 ; Camilleri & Camilleri, 2021 ; Park et al, 2007 ). However, the flaws in this TAM were identified by its own creator, who discovered that it lacked the variables to answer questions such as perceived usefulness or ease of use.…”

“…Consequently, in order to find a more contextual explanation, he supplemented his model with the approach of the uses and gratification theory (UGT) (Katz et al, 1974 ), which established a valid theoretical model to understand the reason behind the choice (Saini & Abraham, 2019 ). This model consists of five items: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitudes towards technology, the intention to use it and real behaviours (Al-Rahmi, 2021 ; Camilleri & Camilleri, 2021 ; Davis, 1989 ).…”