Exploring instructors’ technology readiness, attitudes and behavioral intentions towards e-learning technologies in Egypt and United Arab Emirates

This paper explores the association between technology readiness, (a meta-construct consisting of optimism, innovativeness, discomfort, and insecurity), attitude, and behavioral intention towards e-learning technologies adoption within an education institution context. The empirical study data is collected at two private universities located in Egypt and UAE. The research explores the role of instructors’ technology readiness level, in shaping their attitudes, preference to human interaction and ultimately behavioral intentions towards adopting e-learning technologies. Analysis of the data (Mann-Whitney U non-parametric test) shows no significant differences between instructors at the two universities in terms of technology readiness, attitudes, behavioral intentions, and preference to human interaction. The exploratory results provide evidence for the relationship between instructors’ technology, attitude, and behavioral intentions to adopt e-learning technologies. The study finds that preference to human interaction is equally important in Egypt and UAE with a strong potential to affect instructor’s behavioral intentions for adopting e-learning technologies. The research results provide initial insights to education managers on the nature and mechanisms of the relationship among the research variables, which would improve the ability of educational institutions to introduce and adopt e-learning technologies. An additional contribution is the validity and reliability tests for Technology Readiness (TR) scale, which shows its viability as a meaningful measurement instrument for use in an educational setting. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.