Pre-service teacher’s acceptance and use of a synchronous and collaborative online tool to support teaching and learning at a private higher educational institute

Abstract

New and emerging technologies continue to disrupt the teaching and learning processes and these new innovations are not always easily accepted. In this study, the researchers employed Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) in order to identify the factors that influencing the use and acceptance of a digital emerging technology called the VIA App at a private higher education institution in South Africa. VIA App is a wireless presentation and synchronous collaboration application affording multiple users access to shared content that can be review a quantitative descriptive approach wed and amended in real-time during the learning process. This qualitative study made use of a questionnaire to teste six of the UTAUT2 constructs to determine acceptance using a 5-point Likert scale. Results indicate constructs such as performance expectancy significantly influence the use and acceptance of VIA app. In addition, findings suggest that effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation and habit partially influence the use of the VIA App during teaching and learning. Pre-service teachers’ gender was also found to be significant determinant to the overall acceptance and use of the synchronous and collaborative VIA App.