Internet search engines adoption by high er education students: the influence of domain-specific innovativeness

Wong Chi-bo
Caritas Bianchi College of Careers
Hong Kong SAR, China

The advent of the ‘global electronic revolution' in the twenty-first century has stimulated efforts towards shifting pedagogy from a conventional text book approach into an Internet learning environment. Internet Search Engines (ISE) such as Google and Yahoo have become a very important tool and a useful platform for higher education students to search information they need to complete their assignments and to fulfill their learning purposes. The potential use of ISE for higher education students indicates that ISE providers must understand the important user characteristics that will influence students to adopt this innovative medium for learning purposes. An empirical study was conducted to investigate the extent to which domain-specific innovativeness explains the conditions under which higher education students move from general Internet usage to ISE adoption to support their academic work. A conceptual model is developed from the literature. The model was tested using survey data from 283 higher education students in Hong Kong. The results of this study regardless, of the gender, support the viewpoint that there are significant positive influences of Internet usage and domain-specific innovativeness on ISE adoption. The results also support the moderating role of domain-specific innovativeness in the Internet usage -- ISE adoption link.