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Learning vocabulary through mobile applications has gained momentum in recent years. However, little is known about what elements motivate or demotivate learners to use the applications. This research thus aims at finding out factors that may influence users’ intention to use certain gamified English vocabulary apps and their actual use of the applications based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). This study complements the missing link through structural equation modeling based on the data collected from a large-scale online questionnaire survey. The results show that performance expectancy (PE), facilitating conditions (FC), and attitudes towards behavior (ATB) are positively correlated with behavioral intention (BI) while effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), and openness (OP) are negatively correlated with BI. However, no significant correlation was found between emotional stability (ES), positive competition (PC), and perseverance of effort (POE) and BI as predicted. In addition, behavioral intention (BI) and actual use (AU) are strongly correlated. However, unlike some of the previous studies, the result of this study does not present a significant relationship between FC and actual use (AU). Future research may include participants with diversified cultural backgrounds and extend the constructs further to psychology.
Zhang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.