Abstract

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) predicts the user acceptance of end-user applications by specifying causal relationships among select belief and attitudinal constructs that mediate the influence of external variables on usage behavior. Previous researchers (Davis, 1993) have cited the need to validate TAM across different user populations. Although the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use constructs have received a great deal of recent attention in the MIS literature (Adams, et al., 1992; Davis, 1986, 1989 and 1993; Davis, et al., 1989; Davis and Venkatesh, 1995; Hartwick and Barki, 1994; Hendrickson, et al., 1993; Mathieson, 1991; Moore and Benbasat, 1991; Segars and Grover, 1993; Subramanian, 1995; Venkatesh and Davis, 1994), very few studies have validated the full TAM model using all of the original belief and attitudinal constructs. TAM asserts that the principal influence of beliefs is on attitudesthatsubsequently impact behavior. In addition, there are no published studies that use structural equation modeling and path analysis to validate the full TAM model. To assess TAM, there is a requirement to simultaneously measure the cascading direct and indirect effects of model variables. Validating TAM in this way enables the simultaneous assessment of the effects of attitude toward usingon different measures of usage. Thus, a more finely-grained representation of TAM in predicting qualitatively distinct usage behaviors, or metrics, may be assessed. Furthermore, existing research has not addressed the implications of standardized user interfaces on TAM. To the extent that end-user applications have a similar "look and feel" (e.g. consider MicroSoft windows applications), is there an implication for the role of the ease of useconstruct in TAM? Finally, the role of external variablesvis a vis TAM has not been well explored. Davis (1993) called for (p.483): "future research [to] consider the role of additional [external] variables within TAM." This study extends and refines previous related research by addressing each of these points

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