Technology support for engagement retention: The case of BackPack

Instead of training users to accept and adopt new learning systems, the challenge nowadays is to retain users on a long-term basis. Instructors and students that have grown up in the digital age see IT as part of life which makes initial acceptance and adoption fairly easy but long-term retention more difficult. Therefore, the challenge on utilization is switched from users’ pre-acceptance behaviour (whether they are likely to adopt learning systems) to post-acceptance behaviour (whether they will continue to use the learning systems in the long-term). The traditional model of user behaviour suggests that successfully adopted learning systems that were at one time perceived as being useful and easy to use would likely achieve a high rate of user continuance. However, a paradox exists, as user continuance is often not as high as expected. There is also a theoretical gap between technology acceptance and system continuance for which continuance behaviour cannot be explained by traditional technology acceptance models. This study extends a post-adoption model on habit and IS continuance to investigate the effect of personalization (which includes personal content management, personal time management and privacy control) on learning system continuance. Empirical results suggest that personalization has a positive influence on perceived usefulness and habit, but does not directly influence continuance intention. The results of the case study indicate consistently that there is a need to archive and re-access past course materials with personalized content, but different constraints (e.g., material format, physical space, etc.) prohibit systematic archiving of all past course materials. Both quantitative and qualitative results suggest retaining personalized learning content is perceived as being useful and would enhance continuance intention indirectly.