Art Students' Technostress, Perceived Usefulness, Satisfaction, and Continuance Intention to Use Mobile Educational Applications

Although learning with mobile educational applications (apps) has become popular in higher education, the factors accounting for students' voluntary continuous usage have not yet been investigated fully. This study aims to understand art students'continuance intention by combining the expectation-confirmation model (ECM) and the effect of technostress. A research model was proposed and verified with a sample of 339 undergraduates who majored in art from two Chinese universities. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that: (a) both perceived usefulness and satisfaction directly predict continuance intention, while perceived usefulness indirectly predicts continuance intention through the mediating effect of satisfaction; (b) Technostress has a direct negative effect on both perceived usefulness and continuance intention, but has no direct effect on satisfaction; (c) Technostress indirectly influence students'continuance intention through the mediator of perceived usefulness and satisfaction. The theoretical and practical implications based on the findings are discussed. Purpose: This study aims to understand art students' continuance intention by combining the expectation-confirmation model (ECM) and the effect of technostress. Methods: A research model was proposed and verified with a sample of 339 undergraduates who majored in art from two Chinese universities. Conclusions: The results of structural equation modelling indicated that: (a) both perceived usefulness and satisfaction directly predict continuance intention, while perceived usefulness indirectly predicts continuance intention through the mediating effect of satisfaction; (b) Technostress has a direct negative effect on both perceived usefulness and continuance intention, but has no direct effect on satisfaction; (c) Technostress indirectly influence students' continuance intention through the mediator of perceived usefulness and satisfaction. Implications: This finding provides practical implications for practitioners related to mobile educational apps. The positive influences of perceived usefulness and satisfaction suggested that mobile apps must provide their potential learners with useful content and a pleasant environment. Specifically, app developers can improve learners' perceived usefulness and satisfaction by improving load speed, reducing response time, and providing potential users with what they most need to learn. Based on the negative effect of technostress, it is suggested that the developers of mobile apps should take technostress into account in their decision-making process. For instance, they should be wary of the potential increased technostress when they add more features and functionality to their apps to attract learners' continuous use. In addition, educational institutions also have to pay more attention to guiding students to deal with technostress actively to reduce its negative effect. For instance, teachers should encourage art students to combine other activities, such as face-to-face communication and sports activities, with mobile learning to alleviate technostress. Limitations: Despite the promising findings, this study also has some limitations. Firstly, in this study, the sample was limited to art students from Chinese universities. Considering the cultural differences, we should be cautious about the generality of the findings to learners of different cultures. Future research could verify these associations with participants from different cultural backgrounds. Secondly, this study only examined the mediating effects of perceived usefulness and satisfaction on the impact of technostress on continuance intention. Future research could investigate the mediating effect of other variables in this association, such as learning burnout. Thirdly, we only employed self-reported measurement to collect data. Future research can combine the self-report method with qualitative research methods to obtain more objective data.