Influence of attitudinal belief on e-learning behavior among academics in state universities of Sri Lanka

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to investigate the influence of attitudinal belief of “Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior” (DTPB) on actual e-learning behavior among university academics in Sri Lanka. The study applied a quantitative method by using questionnaire to collect data among university academics. Explorative and Confirmatory Factor analysis was used to examine the reliability and validity. And this study carried out Structural Equation Modeling to assess model fit and through path analysis, the association between variables was investigated. The study resulted that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, compatibility, attitude, behavioural intentions and actual behaviour met the indices for model fit. The findings showed perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use associated with attitude while compatibility is not. Attitude significantly and positively associated with behavioural intention. While behavioural intention positively associated with the actual usage this mediates the relationship between attitude and actual behaviour. The e-learning usage of academicians will help to enhance the quality of higher education system in Sri Lanka as well as to magnify the number of university intake as the country seeks to achieve its vision to be “the knowledge hub in the region and a leader in higher education in Asia by 2020”. Though the e-learning adoption studies are growing trend of education and system researchers as evidenced by extant literature, studies on attitude and intention of academicians especially in an emerging economy like Sri Lanka is still lacking. This study attempts to establish the attitudinal factors that contributes actual e-learning behavior of academicians.