Impact of Personalisation on Adoption of Technology-Mediated Learning in Workplaces

Technology-mediated learning (TML) has gained popularity amongst business organisations, especially since COVID pandemic, as it allows them to offer upskilling opportunities that are geographically inclusive and cost-effective. However, high attrition levels in TML have dented its effectiveness. There have been studies in the academic world where some of the issues leading to learner attrition have been addressed through personalisation, however, there's scarcity of similar studies in workplace environments. Working professionals, unlike students, need to focus on their job role and have limited time to learn. So, extending inferences from academic world to business organisations would be erroneous. This study addresses this gap and explores how personalisation of learning can influence adoption and continued use of TML amongst employees of large organisations. A mixed-method approach was used, where we first interviewed leaders and employees of organisations to capture insights from their experiences, including understanding the various hurdles to adoption of TML and their recommendations to overcome these hurdles. Insights from interviews led us to our research model, which is based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2). A cross-sectional study was conducted to test the various hypotheses of the model and results revealed that working professionals are willing to adopt TML if it helps them improve their performance. Our findings demonstrated that professionals are inclined to adopt TML that's personalised based on their knowledge levels, job roles and responsibilities. In line with previous studies based on UTAUT2, we found that performance expectancy associated with TML was the strongest predictor of behaviour intent to use TML. Thus, adoption will increase if TML is personalised to support individual's job performance and growth.