AI Role-Play as a Convenient Practice Sandbox: Explaining Student Attitudes Toward RNMKRS

This study examines sales students’ attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled sales role-plays through the lens of the technology acceptance model (TAM), assessing how perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and enjoyment shape attitudes toward AI in sales training. We identify enjoyment-based (experiential) value as a theoretically central construct alongside functional assessments of RNMKRS. Using data from 205 undergraduate sales students and structural equation modeling, we test navigation, convenience, and substitutability as antecedents of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and enjoyment, which in turn predict students’ attitudes. We also examine “Reasons For” and “Reasons Against” using AI role-play as an interpretive lens on attitude formation. Results show that convenience predicted perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and enjoyment, but only enjoyment predicted attitude; the only significant indirect pathway linked convenience to attitude through enjoyment. Instructional implications for sales educators are discussed. Students valued RNMKRS for learning sales basics and applying course concepts but criticized its repetition and lack of a personalized, human-like coaching experience. These findings position AI role-play as a complement to human coaching.