Human sciences students` acceptance of IIUM.fm: a test of the technology acceptance model

Abstract

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) represents an important theoretical contribution towards understanding usage and acceptance behaviors of new technologies. According to TAM, one’s actual use of a new technology is influenced directly or indirectly by his or her behavioral intention, attitude, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use of the technology. This study investigates Human Sciences (HS) students’ acceptance of IIUM.FM, their newly established online campus radio, by using TAM as the theoretical framework whereby the concept of knowledge, as external variable, was added to the original model. The study is based on the assumption that students’ knowledge about IIUM.FM will influence their actual listening to it through perceived ease of listening (PEOL), perceived usefulness of listening (PUOL), and attitude towards listening. A cross-sectional survey design is employed to gather data through a self-administered questionnaire to a sample of 467 HS undergraduate students to test six hypotheses generated from literature related to TAM. Both listeners (n1=238) and non-listeners (n2=229) participated in the study. The findings show that listeners are highly knowledgeable about IIUM.FM, have positive perceptions of the radio but have a negative attitude towards listening to it. They mostly listen to music programme at night and from their hostels. Moreover, male students are found to listen more frequently to IIUM.FM than female. Similarly, the seniors tend to listen more to IUM.FM than the juniors. All the six hypotheses are supported in this study. Knowledge about IIUM.FM is found to have an influence on the actual listening via PEOL, PUOL, and attitude towards listening. So the proposed TAM is supported in this study. For the non-listeners, the reasons for not listening were lack of time, reception problems, and lack of knowledge on the existence of IIUM.FM. However, they expressed their intention to listen to it in the future.