Influence on Educators’ Decisions Regarding Continued Use of the Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard in Public School Systems

The purpose of this study was to analyse educators’ decisions on the continued use of the virtual learning environment (VLE) Blackboard and its associated e-learning technologies in the classroom within the public school system. This cross-sectional descriptive quantitative research collected 306 responses from educators in 30 public schools in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The results revealed that the empirical data’s mean performance expectancy (PEY) was lower than the ‘agree’ range of the hypothesised population, implying that the educators’ assumption is that the deployed technology does not improve their work performance. Furthermore, the results showed that learning tradition (LTD) has a complementary partial mediation effect on the relationship between PEY and continued use intention (CUI). Additionally, facilitating conditions (FCCs) also have a complementary partial mediation effect on the relationship between PEY and CUI. Conditional mediation (CoMe) from the path SOI x PEY -> LTD -> CUI was statistically significant. In probing the conditional indirect effect, the results showed that, if the social influence (SOI) increased, the mediation effect of LTD decreases. On the contrary, if it decreased, the mediation effect of LTD increased. This was also evident in the Johnson-Neyman plot. SOI did not moderate the mediation effect of FCC on the relationship between PEY and CUI. This study concludes that social and operational factors highly influence the dynamics of continued use of VLE and its associated e-learning technologies and cannot be discounted by practitioners and policy-makers in their quest to increase technology use in the school system. This study contributes to the unified technology acceptance and use theory model (UTAUT), advancing the idea that facilitating conditions and learning traditions can be mediators and social influence moderators within certain contexts and research settings.