Abstract—The rapid growth of education technology and Internet usage has facilitated the implementation of e-learning services. However, without the successful promotion strategy, it is widely reported that the potential adopters may refuse to accept the e-learning services despite its advantage of enhanced learning performance. As such, past scholars have investigated this phenomenon via the personal cost-benefit viewpoint such as perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness base on the Technology Acceptance Model. This study argued that, unlike other information technologies, the rationale behind the elearning service usage may be distinct from the cost-benefit analysis only. In contrast, this study proposed that the motivation to use the e-learning service may due to the prevention of a threat, a risk or the fear related to the harmful result of not using this service. The current study proposed a theoretical research model to present the effects of fear appeal messages and factual information on individual attitudes towards e-learning service. Findings will be able to indicate interesting research areas for future studies and help managers in evaluating their current e-Learning advertising strategies and future promotion implementation.
Index Terms—Education technology, e-learning, individual attitudes, factual information.
H. S. Doong is with Department of Management Information Systems,
National Chiayi University, Chiayi, Taiwan (e-mail:
hsdoong@mail.ncyu.edu.tw).
W. C. Lin is with Graduate Institute of Marketing and
Logistics/Transportation, National Chiayi University, Chiayi, Taiwan.
H. C. Wang is with Institute of Information Management, National
Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Cite: Her-Sen Doong, Wen-Chun Lin, and Hui-Chih Wang, "The Effects of Fear Appeal Messages and Factual Information on Individual Attitudes towards e-Learning Service," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 358-359, 2012.