Abstract:

Learning Management Systems (LMS) have gained wide-acceptance in higher education. However, making the technology available and mandatory does not guarantee effective use by the faculty. This paper presents a case study of adoption of a LMS in a small American University. The study used the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of technology (UTAUT) to develop and administer an adoption survey to the faculty. The study is unique in that while students’ adoption of LMS in higher education has been studied, little is known about why faculty would choose to adopt, and the extent to which they are willing to adopt the various services provided by an LMS in a voluntary setting. This paper identifies a series of factors that had an impact on faculty’s willingness to adopt an LMS in the context of various faculties of the University. Using a sample of 352 full-time faculty members in a longitudinal research design, the study suggests that despite several years of usage, the LMS is primarily being used only to upload content while forums, assignments and other similar tools are hardly used. This study also shows that behavioral intention to use the LMS was positively correlated with all the other adoption factors such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. This means that all these factors can potentially impact faculty’s intention to adopt the system. However, when one moves to the college level, while College of Arts and Sciences and College Engineering exhibited similar relationships, College of Architecture, Arts and Design and School Business and Management showed a statistical correlation with performance expectancy only. This suggests that faculty in different disciplines behaved differently towards adoption of the LMS. Further, while behavioral intention was correlated with all the other four factors, logistic regression showed that behavioral intention was causally related to performance expectancy and social influence only, with performance expectancy having a much stronger impact on behavioral intention than social influence. The key drivers of faculty adoption in a higher education setting seem to be performance expectation and social influence. Overall the study suggests that faculty in higher education is more likely to use the LMS if they believe that it will impact their job performance, and/or if their peers and administration has created a culture of such usage. However, the discipline (Engineering vs. Architecture, for example) tends to mediate these relationships.

Keywords:

Learning Management System, Adoption, Higher Education.