Students' acceptance of E-books: An application of UTAUT

Electronic book (e-book) technologies have been shown to improve students' learning. The question arises as to which factors may influence accounting students when considering e-books. This study uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), which benchmarks eight different models related to the information technology (IT) acceptance, as the theoretical bases to identify factors that may influence accounting students' acceptance of e-books. Data were collected from 107 accounting students to test an acceptance model of e-books. The results show that many of the hypotheses were found to be significant. Surprisingly, perceived ease of use did not have a positive impact on any factor as anticipated in the hypotheses. Perceived ease of use has negative impacts on perceived usefulness and attitude toward e-books. This suggests that because of the analytical knowledge required in accounting, accounting students found e-books impractical when solving problems or completing assignments.