Technology Acceptance Model - Is the Tech Right for You?
Technology Acceptance Model
Is the Tech Right for You?
This week’s venture into educational technology was an adventure into the Technology Adaptation Model, or TAM for short. My tech buddy “Fab” (his callsign in the Navy), probably already knows about this, and this is why when we talk about making an app to solve all apps in the military, he has emphasized the need to make them intuitive – and I thought he was just that brilliant and using common sense!
In fact, he probably has learned about TAM in his studies, and it just took me a minute longer to get there (cut me some slack, I’m a polysci guy and he’s an engineer). So, let’s examine the TAM models and discuss their key takeaways on how the Army seems to misapply them.
Both of these screen captures come from Venkatesh and Bala (2008, pp. 276 & 280) and have the original TAM outlined in the dashed box. Starting with the base model, TAM, the model shows how technology becomes adapted by the user and involves the technology's perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and combines into the individual's behavioral intention to determine whether they use the technology or not.
Okay, that’s a lot, so let’s see it in action. What we’re generally looking at with TAM is two items from the user’s perspective – how easy is it to use (Perceived Ease of Use) and how beneficial is the technology to me (Perceived Usefulness). In FAB and I’s development of a new system that connects military members, drives learning and education, and enables rapid collaboration, we decided that it had to be constructed to appear like a social media site – think Facebook or LinkedIn. This was to overcome the training gap that might exist when you roll out a new program, so if you make it intuitive to the majority by shaping it like something they already use, that would lower the program’s perceived ease of use to an achievable level for the majority and help shape the narrative for explaining what it is. Together, this enables the individual’s behavioral intention to lean towards adopting the technology.
Example:
FAb, “Have you heard of XYZ?”
Chris, “Oh yeah, that’s like the military LinkedIn, right?”
FAb, “You got it!”
Conversely, if you ignore the perceived usefulness and ease of use, you are likely not to have your technology adopted. Does anyone else remember the early smartphone race? Apple made its mark by ensuring iPhones' perceived ease of use was easier than their competitors, thus making it more likely for the older generation to adopt the simpler-to-use smartphone.
When we look at TAM 2 and TAM 3, we’re looking at all of the additional factors that play into perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Anchors refer to individuals' beliefs about technology, while adjustments are the interactions with technology that shape their experience (Chutter, 2009, p. 15). All of these supporting influences have been fleshed out in later models as the TAM model has been replicated and studied.
Baggozi, as referenced in Chutter (2009, p. 19) discusses that the TAM model is deterministic because it relies on the individual acting and not those who didn’t act. Essentially, only the individuals who were going to adopt the technology were studied because those who were not going to adopt it didn’t even participate. However, a quick look at my parents’ adoption or lack thereof of ChatGPT may validate the TAM model on their own.
Reflection Questions:
- What is a technology experience you adopted because of its perceived ease of use?
- Is the TAM model deterministic?
- What is a technology you haven’t adopted? Why?
References:
Chuttur, Mohammad, " Overview of the Technology Acceptance Model: Origins, Developments and Future Directions" (2009). All Sprouts Content. 290.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/sprouts_all/290
Venkatesh, V., & Davis, F. D. (2000). A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model: Four Longitudinal Field Studies. Management Science, 46(2), 186–204. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.46.2.186.11926
Hi Chris,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the obvious experience you have in creating well-written, clearly explained, visually dynamic blog posts. It sets a wonderful example and makes your blog easy to read. I also appreciate the way you can take a complicated, academic concept and break it down into a simple, clear explanation. Great work! I’ll have to keep an eye out for news about your app coming out. If that’s anything like your blogging skills, I’m sure you’ll be successful. Go get that YouTube and Facebook sale money!
For your questions:
What is a technology experience you adopted because of its perceived ease of use?
I wrote about this in my blog this week, but I started using continuous glucose monitors specifically because of how easy they are (the definition of ‘set it and forget it’). They’ve even gotten easier since I started using them so now instead of manually having to check to find out my blood sugar, (holding my phone to a sensor about the size of a silver dollar stuck on the back of my arm) I just open an app, and it gives an updated reading once a minute. It’s fantastic.
Additionally, the perceived usefulness, as described by Davis (1985) is also high. Being able to effortlessly monitor such an important health metric has improved my overall health, lowering my average blood sugar significantly, which will lead to long term benefits preventing damage to my eyes and internal organs. Possibly adding years to my life. That’s pretty useful in my opinion. The unfortunate thing is the cost is high, and insurance will only cover them if a person is insulin dependent, which can ultimately be avoided if people can reliably and easily monitor their blood sugar! Kind of an unfortunate Catch-22. They really are revolutionary and an incredible advance in medical technology, especially because of their usefulness and ease of use. I have been a huge advocate for them since I started using them. So, it’s unfortunate for their adoption to be restricted by insurance companies and capitalism.
Is the TAM model deterministic?
I’ll be honest, I don’t know enough about determinism (or TAM really, since I only read about it this week) to answer this question, but I look forward to reading other people’s responses and learning more about it.
What is a technology you haven’t adopted? Why?
Back up cameras! Any car with a back up camera has to have a screen on the dashboard for it, and I absolutely hate them. I bought my 2015 Mirage in 2017 and one of the reasons I chose it was because of the simple dashboard. No bells, no whistles, no digital displays beside my remaining gas miles and the time, no giant screen with stuff always on it to distract me. I’ve driven vehicles that have them and I just have never gotten used to it, plus I don’t want a bunch of flashing lights and stuff happening in front of me while I drive. I have ADHD and keeping my mind on the road is hard enough already. My car is still going strong at 150,000 miles, and at 45 mpgs I’m going to run it into the ground, but I know eventually I’ll have to move on, and I am anticipating finding a car with a simple enough dash is going to be a challenge. I wish the car industry would consider neurodivergence when designing cars, but that’s a level of accessibility I don’t anticipate being built into many societal systems any time soon.
It does make me wonder about the intersection of TAM and disability. That’s something I’ll have to investigate.
Davis, F. D. (1986). A technology acceptance model for empirically testing new end-user information systems: theory and results [Dissertation]. In MIT.edu. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/15192
Hey Vanessa!
DeleteThank you! For my app, it will be Army-owned and developed, so it will likely get red-taped to death and definitely won't generate any revenue, just more work from the Army (the best reward, right?). More work, same pay 😬).
Oh no! The adoption of backup cameras is really nice! However, I will say my wife and I had this discussion last week. There is a benefit to learning fundamental skills before taking on the bells & whistles, because when those fail, you have to still be able to function (safely). I’ve had a similar experience with my phones – I can get distracted easily and have gone from smartphone to flip phone back to smartphone, but now I use a gray screen so all the colors are muted.
If we’re looking at TAM and disability, the environmental factors increase the need for perceived usefulness and ease of use (Davis, 1989). My wife and I were camping the other weekend, and the site was “ADA friendly” – it had one (rather bumpy) paved walkway to the bathrooms and then had two steps to get in the actual building, rendering the bathroom not ADA accessible.
How often do we do this with technology? Here’s a great new app, but it either ignores or worsens the experience for those with disabilities.
Chris
References:
Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.2307/249008
Chris, great and detailed post. To answer your question on the technology adopted because of perceived ease of use, I would answer with an example at an enterprise level. At most commercial organizations today a key decision is whether to build/install home grown systems (pros: more secure, better data security and customized to the particular organization, key cons: expensive); or procure software as a solution (Saas) which is cheaper; but under less control and your data is at the mercy of third-party vendors. From a perceived ease of use, Saas solutions make a lot of sense even with their cons (Palos-Sanchez et al., 2017), and that is where I have directed our organization’s technology bent. There was much resistance to the same in the beginning; but most IT problems have an IT solution 😊 (customary data backups and retainer models with other vendors to be backup systems help.) So that would be an example of an adoption of technology from a perceived ease-of-use standpoint.
ReplyDeleteReference:
Palos-Sanchez, P. R., Arenas-Marquez, F. J., & Aguayo-Camacho, M. (2017). Cloud Computing (SAAS) adoption as a Strategic technology: Results of an Empirical study. Mobile Information Systems, 2017, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/2536040
Hi Yugant!
DeleteThat’s a great example! We’re seeing a shift in the military from internally developed software solutions to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) as the primary means of developing capabilities.
It has pros and cons – pro, the Army doesn’t have to develop it. Con, the Army has to pay a ton of money to private industry to make changes and provide licenses for all the users (which, at 1+ million potential licenses, adds up quickly). All while balancing fiscal responsibility of taxpayer dollars and public scrutiny if a system fails to do what was promised.
Thank you!
Chris
Chris,
ReplyDeleteThe way you tied TAM to both your work with Fab and larger industry examples like Apple made the concepts really clear. Framing a new system to look like something familiar, such as a social media platform, is a smart way to lower training gaps and boost perceived ease of use. It also highlights how communication and framing shape whether a tool feels useful.
Your discussion about TAM being deterministic was thought provoking. The example of your parents and ChatGPT shows how non-adoption can sometimes say just as much as adoption. It makes me wonder whether studies should capture those barriers more intentionally, since usefulness and ease of use can’t even come into play if people are unwilling to engage at all.
A technology I adopted because of its ease of use was Google Drive. It felt intuitive right away and the integration with other tools made the usefulness obvious. On the other hand, I have not adopted smart home devices like Alexa. Privacy concerns outweigh the perceived usefulness for me, which shows how personal context influences adoption.
I am curious about your project with Fab. Beyond making the interface familiar, how do you see TAM 2 and TAM 3 factors like social influence or result demonstrability playing into adoption in a military setting?
References
Chuttur, M. (2009). Overview of the Technology Acceptance Model: Origins, developments and future directions. Sprouts: Working Papers on Information Systems, 9(37). https://aisel.aisnet.org/sprouts_all/290
Venkatesh, V., & Davis, F. D. (2000). A theoretical extension of the technology acceptance model: Four longitudinal field studies. Management Science, 46(2), 186–204. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.46.2.186.11926
Hi Ali!
DeleteGoogle Drive is handy and intuitive – I’m a fan! I was having this discussion the other day with a colleague who is looking at new phones since theirs is on it’s last legs – they were debating between an Apple or Google Pixel. We discussed the Apple-sphere versus the Google-sphere, focusing on which one is more useful and complements their current technology collection. i.e., they don’t have a MacBook, so they don’t have to worry about the document transfer, and they already use Google Drive. This made it easier for them to leave their old Apple phone (the only type they’ve had) and switch to the Google Pixel. A smart move on Google’s part; they've made their phones feel like iPhones, making the switch intuitive and natural.
For our technology efforts, we’re looking at two different customer bases. First, the military. We believe that building, hosting, and controlling the platform in-house will save costs in the long term and develop skills in individuals across the force to manage the platform. Second, we aim to make the service member's phone the only app they need for work, making it incredibly easy to use, which is why we've adopted a social media layout. We believe that achieving both goals can transform the military's communication and collaboration, breaking down silos between services (Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.) and moving us towards a more joint-oriented military. No big goals, right? 😬😬
Thank you!
Chris