Empowering Medical Educators: A UTAUT Analysis of Technology Adoption in Inquiry-Based Learning

This non-experimental quantitative study investigated medical school faculty members’ behavioral intention to use and actual usage behavior of technology in inquiry-based learning activities in medical schools in the United States by applying the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). In medical education, situational problems for students to solve typically incorporate instructive clinical cases to guide problem-solving and prepare them for their professional lives as clinicians. Technology-infused inquiry-based learning pedagogy can require significant paradigm shifts for both students and instructors. It can impact the level of responsibility students take upon themselves for their own learning, and use of a pedagogy instructors may find unfamiliar, to deliver content. Major findings demonstrated performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence had a significant relationship with behavioral intention to use technology for teaching medical education inquiry-based activities. Gender and voluntariness of use were both found to have significant effects on the relationship between performance expectancy and behavioral intention to use technology. The results of this study can aid stakeholders in providing support mechanisms for faculty to adopt technology for teaching and learning. This is possibly the first of its kind on the application of this theoretical model to address medical educators’ behavioral intention to use and actual usage behavior of educational technologies for the delivery of inquiry-based learning activities.