Acceptance and Appropriation of Videoconferencing for E-training: an Empirical Investigation

The purpose of this paper is to explore the acceptance and the appropriation of videoconferencing-mediated training during real training situations in a French company. We compare the acceptance and appropriation by 60 employees of two videoconferencing-mediated training systems : the virtual class (desktop videoconferencing) and the remote class (where learners are gathered together in the same room while the trainer is located at distance). In considering the acceptance of these videoconferencing-mediated training systems, a link was confirmed between perceived usefulness and the intention to use, but no relationship was established between the levels of acceptance and the required effort. The intention to use videoconferencing was associated with the expected benefits and not with the expected effort. Regarding appropriation, learners did not report a perception of technological distance. Moreover, we show that learners and the trainer preferred the virtual class rather than the more classical remote class. Our findings contradict the media richness theory, according to which the remote class, which is the "richer" medium in our research, should have been preferred.