The effect of COVID-19 pandemic on university education: Adoption of e-learning and testing the technology acceptance model

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting the acceptance of e-learning among university students, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to reveal the factors affecting the reasons for students to use e-learning systems. We adopted the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to understand better the adoption of e-learning systems by university students. We gathered data from 716 university students who received distance education during the pandemic and used SPSS 22.0, AMOS 22.0 and SmartPLS 3.3 software to perform statistical analyses. The findings indicate that compatibility is related to perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Moreover, attitude is influenced by perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The results reveal the importance of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, self-learning necessity, and compatibility on intention to use.