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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an umbrella term that covers all
technologies in retrieving and communicating information and it has turned the world into a
global village enabling the compression of time and space. This circumstance has led to a
paradigm shift in higher education of Sri Lanka in an effort to capture ICTs to a large extent, as it
is the foremost important method to create a technology-equipped generation as effective users
of ICTs to cope with the present job market demands. However, literature reveals a lack of
sufficient interest in individual use and acceptance of ICTs among Sri Lankan university
students. Many researchers in other countries have studied and proposed theories and models on
individual use and acceptance of technologies to facilitate predicting individual user behavior
with technology over a rapid change in both technologies and their environments. Each theory or
model consists of different sets of determinants and moderators exclusive to their own countries.
It is therefore questioned whether these theories and models can be used in outside contexts,
especially in countries like Sri Lanka. Many researchers have also found that individual cultural
values have a strong contextual influence on individual use and acceptance of ICTs. Therefore,
the current research aims at proposing a parsimonious and a robust model, which best describes
the individual use and acceptance of ICTs among university students in Sri Lanka with the
intention of promoting usage and future acceptance. The research study involved a combination
of positivist and phenomenological inquiries that led to the use of qualitative and quantitative
approaches. The design of the study consisted of two main phases: the exploratory study and the
main study. The exploratory study was carried out to check the feasibility of the research and the
main study, tested the conceptual model using structured questionnaires from 1681 of university
students. Statistical analysis methods and Structural Equation Modeling were employed with
SPSS version 21 with AMOS to analyze data. The model developed, ICT Use and Acceptance
Model (ICTUAM), was finalized with an excellent model fit. Performance expectancy and
facilitating conditions are the determinants which describe the current ICT usage behavior and
the performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and current usage behavior play
important roles in determining the behavior intention to future use of ICTs.
Masculinity/femininity moderated the relationship between performance expectancy and current
usage behavior. Power distance moderated the relationship between performance expectancy and
the behavior intention to future use of ICTs. The relationship between the social influence and
behavior intention to future use of ICTs was moderated by the main subject stream,
masculinity/femininity, individualism/collectivism and uncertainty avoidance.
Individualism/collectivism moderated the relationship between effort expectancy and behavior
intention to future use of ICTs. The model is a useful tool to suggest strategies to improve the
use and acceptance of ICTs to gain skills and thereby contribute to accrue higher dividends for
the individuals as well as the society as a whole.
