Beyond acceptance: an empirical investigation of technological, ethical, social, and individual determinants of GenAI-supported learning in higher education

The rapid development of generative AI (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, has created both opportunities and challenges for its use in education. Some educators have expressed concern that such rapid report generation from AI may encourage cheating or hinder the development of critical thinking skills in students. Moving beyond mere acceptance, we propose an integrated model based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the norm activation model (NAM) to examine the technological, ethical, social, and individual determinants of learners’ behavioral intentions to use GenAI-supported learning applications in higher education. A total of 336 actual user responses from college students in Taiwan were collected through an online survey, and structural equation modeling using LISREL 8.54 was used to test the proposed hypotheses derived from the TAM-NAM model. The results show that perceived usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment (technological factors) significantly influence college students’ intention to engage in GenAI-supported learning applications, confirming findings of technological importance from the literature. Awareness of consequences positively influences personal norms (ethical factors) but negatively influences behavioral intentions; however, personal norms and subjective norms (social factors) are not found to be significant. This finding adds evidence to the academic integrity literature and reflects how college students consider ethical issues when using GenAI for learning. In addition, we found that personal innovativeness and self-efficacy are significant individual factors for college students’ adoption of GenAI-supported learning applications. Based on the proposed TAM-NAM model, the results highlight the importance of considering technological benefits alongside ethical considerations and individual motivations. Discussion and implications are provided.