Adoption of Video Lectures for Learning – Content Quality and Gender Difference

With the recent innovation of enhancing the Internet speed, sharing multimedia contents including image, audio, animation, and video has been much easier and faster. According to eMarketer’s report (2015), people have spent more time with digital video than with social media since 2015. In addition, Cisco predicts that 80% of global Internet consumption will be video content by 2019. We can easily observe this rapid growth of video contents in the industry (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, and Netflix) as well as the education (e.g., Khan Academy, Lynda.com, and online schools). Recently, video contents have increasingly been used for online and blended learning classes in universities and colleges. However, there has been little research attention on understanding whether and how people have adopted the video contents for learning. In this study, we develop a research model to examine the adoption of video lectures for learning with theories of technology acceptance and task technology fit. While both theories have been used in the study of technology adoption, they focus on different aspects of adoption. For example, the technology acceptance model focuses on individual acceptance of technology based on perceptions of usefulness and ease of use, but the task technology fit model focuses on the fit between different types of task and technology. Dishaw and Strong’s (1999) argue that an integrated TAM/TTF model can provide better understanding of technology utilization and adoption than either individual model. We employed and adapted their integrated model of TAM/TTF to understand the adoption of video lectures for learning. Our research model has been assessed with the data collected from three online and blended classes in southeastern universities. Preliminary results from the partial least squares analysis show that content quality of video lectures positively affects the user’s perception of fit in using video lectures for learning, and the better fit would increase perceived usefulness and adoption of video lectures for learning. Our research also investigates how gender plays a role on the adoption of video lectures for learning. Gender has received research attention as a factor influencing IT adoption. Gefen and Straub (1997) tested and found gender difference in the adoption of communication technology such as an e-mail service. Building upon prior research on technology adoption, we include and test gender as a moderator in the adoption of video lectures for learning. The finding from this research would help us better understand quality control and gender difference in employing video lectures for online/blended learning