Following the unprecedented outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), educators and students have shifted from conventional face-to-face lectures to fully virtual sessions that were delivered via video conferencing software. This research investigates the facilitating conditions and the students' perceptions toward using these interactive resources to continue their learning journey. The data was gathered through a structured questionnaire among 777 students in tertiary education. The survey instrument comprised valid measures that are frequently utilized in academia, to evaluate the individuals' acceptance of interactive educational technologies. A partial least squares (PLS) approach revealed that there were very significant factors that were predicting the students' dispositions to utilize synchronous learning programs. The findings underlined the importance of providing appropriate facilitating conditions to improve perceptions and attitudes toward interactive conferencing software. These results reflect the latest developments, as COVID-19 has inevitably accelerated the digital transformation in the realms of education. This contribution implies that students adapted well to a new normal. It confirmed that they are willing to participate and engage in virtual meetings through video conferencing programs.

1. Remote learning via video conferencing
technologies: Implications for research and
practice
By Prof. Dr. Mark Anthony Camilleri, Ph.D. and Ms. Adriana Caterina Camilleri
Workshop on International Trends in Education
June 14th – 16th 2022
Óbuda University
Budapest, Hungary

2. Introduction
• An unexpected Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (and its
preventative measures) disrupted the provision of educational
services in various contexts around the globe (Bolumole, 2020;
Johnson et al., 2020; Rahiem, 2020).
• During the first wave of COVID-19, educational institutions shifted from
traditional teaching approaches to a fully virtual learning environment
(Camilleri, 2021).
• Academic members of staff relied on the use of remote learning technologies
like learning management systems (LMSs) and video conferencing software to
teach their courses (Cesco et al., 2021) – even when COVID-19 restrictions
were eased.
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

3. Research question
• This research investigates the students' acceptance and utilitarian
motivations to use video conferencing software.
• It uses constructs that were drawn from the technology acceptance
model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) and from its related Unified Theory of
Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT/UTAUT2) (Venkatesh, Morris,
Davis & Davis, 2003; Venkatesh, Thong & Xu, 2012)
• It integrated them with perceived interactivity construct (McMillan &
Hwang, 2002) to better understand the students' readiness to use
synchronous conferencing technologies.
• Specifically, this study sheds light on the students’ performance and
effort expectations from using these interactive technologies. It explores
the educational institutions' facilitating conditions and examines the
students’ attitudes as well as their intentions to adopt them.
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

4. “A definition of
the key
constructs that
were used in this
study”
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022
• Performance expectancy is the perception about the
degree to which individuals believe that using
technologies will help them improve their performance.
• Effort expectancy is the perception about degree of
easiness of the technology.
• Perceived interactivity is the perception about web-
based, two-way communications among online users,
in real time.
• Facilitating conditions is the perception about the
organizational and technical resources that are meant
to support the use of technology.
• Attitudes are defined as the individuals positive or
negative feelings about performing target behaviors.
• Intentions are defined as a measure of strength of the
individuals’ willingness to perform specific behaviors
(like using technologies).

5. The formulation of hypotheses
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

6. Methodology
The questionnaire’s items were adapted from valid and reliable academic
sources, including from PI (McMillan & Hwang, 2002), TAM (Cheng & Yuen, 2018;
Davis, 1989; Lin et al., 2013), TPB (Park et al., 2012; Ajzen, 1991) and from UTAUT
(Dečman, 2015; Hoi, 2020; Venkatesh et al., 2003, 2012).
The participants disclosed their demographic information about their age, gender
and experience with remote learning technologies.
They completed the questionnaire in less than five minutes. The responses were
coded on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly
agree) with 3 signalling a neutral position.
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

7. “The measures
that were used
in the survey
instrument”
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

8. The sample
• The respondents were registered students at the University of Malta (UM).
• A cover letter comprising a link to this study’s survey questionnaire was disseminated
via email to more than 11,000 students. The recipients of this email were enrolled in
full-time or part-time courses at UM.
• N=777 valid responses.
• Females (n = 525)
• Males (n = 246)
• 6 participants did not indicate their gender
• Most of the research participants were between 18 and 21 years of age (n = 558)
followed by those between 22 and 25 years of age (n = 69).
• The majority of respondents (n = 771) revealed that they used video conferencing
technologies in the past two years. ©Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

9. © Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022
Note: The discriminant validity was calculated by using the Fornell-Larcker criterion and through the HTMT procedure. The values of the square root of the AVEs (in bold) for each construct
were greater than the correlations among the constructs in their respective columns.
The shaded area features the results from the HTMT procedure. The discriminant validity was established as these values were less than 1 (Henseler et al., 2015).

10. © Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

11. © Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

12. © Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022
The indirect effects
within this
research model.

13. Theoretical implications
• This research raises awareness on evaluating the individuals' attitudes toward technologies when conducting
empirical studies that are meant to explore technology adoption behaviors.
• In this case, the research participants' attitudes were significantly affected by performance expectancy. In fact, PE-ATT link
was the most significant causal path in this research model.
• Notwithstanding, attitudes also affected the individuals' intentions to use technologies. ATT-INT was found to be highly
significant. Moreover, attitudes were significantly mediating the relationship between performance expectancy and
intentions.
• Regrettably, many UTAUT/UTAUT2 researchers are not integrating the attitudes construct in their empirical models, even
though this construct was one of the key factors that was used in TPB and in the earlier versions of TAM.
• This research reported that effort expectancy anticipated the performance expectancy.
• This study revealed that facilitating conditions were strongly predicting their effort expectancy (FC-EE).
• The results suggest that there was a very significant effect between facilitating conditions and the students’
perceptions about the interactivity of video conferencing technologies (FC-PI).
• Last but not least, this research clarified that the students’ perceptions about the interactivity of video
conferencing technologies were influencing their performance expectancy (PI-PE).
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

14. Managerial implications
• The students felt that their educational institution provided them with
suitable facilitating conditions that helped them in their transition to
continue their learning journey via video conferencing technologies.
• In the main, the results reported that the research participants held
positive perceptions and attitudes toward video conferencing technologies.
They indicated that they considered them as easy-to-use and useful.
• They were intrigued to use video conferencing software as they were interactive
and enabled two-way communications.
• On the other hand, the research participants also revealed that they were not
completely pleased with the quality of educational services that was delivered
through video conferencing technologies. Reportedly, ATT2 was one of the lowest
mean scores in this study. Yet, the respondents were still willing to continue using
conferencing programs in the future. © Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

15. Research limitations and future research
directions
• An SEM-PLS analysis was used to validate the constructs that were
employed in this contribution's research model.
• Further research can use other samples, methodologies, and analytical
techniques to explore the students' utilitarian motivations to use video
conferencing technologies in education.
• Future studies may consider alternative technology adoption models that
were mentioned in this paper, including TRA, TAM, TAM2, TAM3, TPB, the
Motivational Model, Combined TAM and TPB (C-TAM-TPB), the Model of
PC Utilization (MPCU), Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), and the Social
Cognitive Theory (SCT), among others.
• They could also explore the effects of moderating demographic variables
including age, gender and experience, among others, in their research
models.
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

16. Conclusions
• The interactive video conferencing programs satisfied the students’
performance expectations as they perceived them as useful tools to
improve their learning outcomes.
• Their performance expectancy as well as their positive attitudes towards
their virtual learning experience were significant predictors for their
intentions to continue using these interactive technologies in the future.
• COVID-19 opened a window of opportunity for higher education
stakeholders.
• This contribution suggests that the use of synchronous video conferencing
could continue in the foreseeable future - as they can easily be used in
blended learning approaches, in a post COVID-19 context.
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022

17. References
The full references are available here:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101881
© Camilleri & Camilleri, 2021

18. Thanks for your attention.
Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!
Suggested citation: Camilleri, M.A. & Camilleri, A.C. (2022). Remote
learning via video conferencing technologies: Implications for research
and practice. Technology in Society,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101881 (OPEN ACCESS)