An analysis of post-adoption usage of personal learning systems

Abstract

The consumerization of IT products has been very much characterized by bottom up user adoption in recent years. The advancement of broadband and wireless technologies has amplified the network effect. Learning is becoming more self-centric and network-based. Learners are personalizing their own way of learning as they have different learning competencies, preferences and objectives. A personal learning system (personal learning environment & network, PLE&N for short) is developed in order to, among others, integrate learning sources, foster ubiquitous learning activities and build up networks for co-learning and locating expertise. In summary, a PLE&N serves as a platform fostering self-regulated and network-based learning, resulting in enhancing one's knowledge in problem solving, collaboration, and innovation. The aim of this research is to identify and study factors that influence the continued usage (post-adoption) of a selected PLE&N. The research objective is to build and validate a research model explaining factors involved in the continued use of PLE&N tools. A survey was conducted to validate the research model and the hypotheses for the continued usage of the PLE&N. 95 valid responses were collected from students and graduates of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The results from the present study show that intention is a significant and the highest loading predictor of continued usage. Compatibility and social influence are also found to be valid. Among all cognitive constructs, perceived usefulness, however, is non-significant. This unexpected result may be attributed to the context of this study, as learning is a long-term process and there is no well accepted indicator of successful or unsuccessful learning. Respondents might find it hard to relate perceived usefulness to the PLE&N tools. As regards the affective constructs, pleasure, which measures the cognitive judgment (good-bad), and arousal, which measures the intensity of the judgment (strong-weak), are found to posit positive influence on continued usage. Dominance, which measures the feeling of control and influence (active-passive), is also significant. Its impact on continued usage is negative, which infers that the subjects do not want to be controlled, submitted or guided in the use of PLE&N. This study contributes to the information systems (IS) field by investigating continued usage in a personal context and incorporating the influence of unconscious factors (personal affects) on continued usage. This study does have limitations, including the small sample size, the possibility of response bias, and the weakness of a cross-sectional field study. Despite all the limitations, the author would encourage more research on how personal affects influence IS continuance, and more research work under different contexts or settings.