Factors enabling the acceptance and use of a podcast aggregator in accounting education

摘要

The aims of the current study are to identify the behavioral factors enabling students' acceptance and use of a podcast aggregator that provides tips about contents taught in the classroom, as well as to investigate its impact on knowledge formation among Accounting Sciences undergraduate students from a Federal University in Southern Brazil, based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and on Vygotsky's Historical-Cultural Theory. Data were collected through the application of an on-site questionnaire comprising closed questions and through diagnostic evaluations based on Vygotsky's theory. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) conducted in the SPSS v. 017 and SmartPLS v. 2.0 software, as well as the content analysis conducted in the NVivo software, were the data analysis techniques adopted in the current study. The current research is justified by the need of conducting studies based on education theories and on theoretical frameworks associated with technology acceptance in order to help better understanding to what extent technology contributes to cognitive development. According to the current results, it was possible concluding that students' acceptance and use of the podcast aggregator in both investigated classes was motivated by aspects such as social influence and performance expectations.