Integrating emotional attachment, resource sharing, communication and collaboration into UTAUT2 to examine students' behavioural intention to adopt social media networks in education

This study aims to develop and test an amalgamated conceptual framework based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) with trust (TR), emotional attachment (EA), resource and material sharing (RA), communication (COM) and collaboration (COL), which might be the salient factors that may influence the adoption of Social Networking Sites (SNS) for educational purposes. Data were collected from 399 Omani university students who use SNSs for their academic purposes using a self-administrated questionnaire. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was employed to perform reliability and validity checks, and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to test the proposed conceptual model. As hypothesised, the findings of this research revealed that students' Behavioural Intention (BI) was positively and significantly influenced by COM, RA, Performance Expectancy (PE), COL, EA, hedonic motivation, and habit, in their order of influencing power and explained 67.7% of the variance in behavioural intention. However, effort expectancy and TR did not have affecting impact on BI. This study could help instructors and managements at higher educational institutions to formulate strategies to encourage the students to use the social networking sites for academic purposes.