An Empirical Study on Influencing Learners’ Value Co-creation Intention in Educational Virtual Communities

Compared with the traditional education environment, the new generation of information technology-enabled Educational Virtual Community (EVC) breaks the boundaries between learners and knowledge, transforming them from passive recipients of information to the main participants in the acquisition of knowledge. EVC not only empowers learners with the initiative to acquire, experience and share knowledge, but also provides learners with rich perceived value during the process, building an important carrier for learners to co-create value. Based on the theoretical framework of S-O-R (Stimulate-Organize-Response), this paper considers the interactions between learners and organizational characteristics, and innovatively constructs a technology acceptance model integrating TAM and VAM to explain learners’ value co-creation intention in EVC. 357 valid samples were collected through an online questionnaire platform, which were analyzed and tested by structured equation modeling to clarify the influencing factors of user participation in value co-creation in EVC. The results of the study reveal the influence mechanism of EVC characteristics on learners’ intention to participate in value co-creation on the theoretical level, enriching the study of the driving factors of learners’ participation in EVC value co-creation; and provide corresponding references and suggestions for promoting and incentivizing learners to participate in value co-creation activities in EVC on the practical level, which provides managerial insights into high-quality development of EVC.