Determining the Factors of Affecting the Moodle Use by Using Tam. the Story of a University After a Destructive Earthquake

Abstract

A destructive earthquake happened in October 2011 in one of the cities at Eastern Region of our country and it caused big damages in the city. All educational system affected negatively and university in the city had to break down its education. It was even not possible to continue education because of huge damages and heavy weather condition at city. In order to solve this problem, it was decided to use Moodle to continue education at the university. All students and instructors except for the medical and dental faculties were obliged to use Moodle during 2011-2012 fall semesters. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the factors which might affect the intention to use Moodle by university students using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in case of earthquake. A survey method was used to collect data. Purposive sampling was used and 501 university students were participated in the current study. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and the proposed model was tested by using structural equation model. The proposed model has seven constructs and nine hypotheses have been generated from the connections among these seven constructs. Except for the one hypothesis, the model supported the entire hypothesis proposed in the model. Implications and discussion are made in light of the results.