Attitudes toward Using Communication Technologies in Education: A Comparative Study of Email and SMS

Abstract

Educational institutions deploy email and short message service (SMS) to maintain efficient communication with their students. This research examines factors influencing students' attitudes toward using SMS and email, and compares the differences in the proposed factors between email and SMS. The results show that information richness and mobility affect students' perceived utility of email and SMS while information privacy and perceived utility affect the students' attitudes toward using email and SMS. Social pressure has found no impact on the research model. Students also perceive that email provides rich information and utility higher that SMS but SMS possesses mobility more than email. In addition, students have attitudes toward using email more that SMS to maintain communication with their institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of findings, implications and limitations.