Technology has proved to be helpful in an education setting. Even though some people think technology is a distraction in class, it has helped to improve engagement in class. Many people have tried to introduce technology in teaching, but some challenges have faced them. For example, the employees such as teachers might refuse to accept new technology and hence make it difficult to implement technology in the learning institution.
In the recent past, researchers are trying to research to understand the factors that are influencing the acceptance of technology in education (Teo, 2011). This is because they have realized at times, teachers and other education industry staffs are refusing to adopt technology in the day-to-day activities. As a result, they come up with the technology acceptance model (TAM), which can be applied to determine the acceptance of technology in education or any other field implementing technology.
Learning institutions especially the university levels are now understanding the importance of technology for education and therefore raising the need to understand the determinants of technology acceptance and use in these learning institutions (Padilla-MeléNdez et al., 2013). Technology acceptance model is a theory that tries to model how people come to accept the technology.
TAM has two main components, which are perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Perceived usefulness is the fact that people will be willing to use technology if they understand the importance of technology. For example, the employees will refuse to use the technology if they do not know how the technology will benefit them. Perceived ease of use states that the employees will refuse to accept the technology is they perceive it as challenging to use.
Universities are investing heavily in learning management systems (LMS) to facilitate the teaching and learning process. However, LMS technology is not used as expected to facilitate the teaching-learning process (Fathema et al., 2015). To solve the problem of teaching staffs refusing to use the technology in teaching, TAM has been used to understand the reason behind the acceptance of technology in education. Some of the findings indicate that facilitation condition, perceived self-efficacy, and system quality are some of the external factors that can be used to predict the acceptance of the technology (Fathema et al., 2015). The study by Fathema et al. (2015) confirmed that TAM could be used to predict the behaviour that can lead to acceptance or refusal of technology. Understanding these behaviours, education institutions will be able to find a solution that will help improve these behaviours to more desirable ones.
Akcil et al. (2019) researched to investigate the importance of technology leadership self-efficacy in teaching and learning process from TAM perspective. The researchers wanted to understand whether technological leadership is influencing the use of technology in teaching digital native students. The perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use components of TAM were used to evaluate the effect of technology leadership self-efficacy on technology implementation. They interviewed a total of 20 schools in 2018 academic year, and the following is what they found. Technology self-efficacy was found to enhance the effective use of technology, improved communication with stakeholders, improve trust based on social interaction and impact on the integration of technology in the education setting. These findings indicate that technology leadership self-efficacy can have a significant effect on the acceptance of new technology in teaching and learning process. If the stakeholders are convinced that technology is going to help them, they will accept it, and otherwise, they will not.