Examining the Factors affecting the sustainability of blockchain technology in higher education using a hybrid SEM-ANN approach

Abstract

Blockchain technology has received considerable attention during the last few years. Blockchain technology permits the creation of a distributed record of a decentralized digital event in which data and related transactions are not controlled by a third party. However, little is known concerning what affects their sustainable use for educational purposes. Consequently, there are three primary goals for this research. A systematic review is conducted to address the research gaps in the literature on Blockchain adoption from the lens of information system (IS) models and theories. The systematic review included empirical studies published between January 2010 and December 2021 on the topic of blockchain adoption. Among the 918 articles, 30 articles were critically analyzed based on the inclusion criteria. This research, therefore, develops a theoretical model based on extracting constructs from the protection motivation theory (PMT) and expectation confirmation model (ECM) to understand the sustainable use of blockchain in higher education. The developed model was then tested based on data collected through an online survey from 374 university students in the UAE who used blockchain technology for educational purposes. The model was empirically validated using a hybrid structural equation modelling-artificial neural network (SEM-ANN) approach. The hypotheses testing results reinforced most of the suggested hypotheses in the developed model. The sensitivity analysis results for model 1 revealed that satisfaction has the most considerable effect on the sustainable use of blockchain technology with 100% normalized importance, followed by perceived usefulness (58.8%), perceived severity (12.1%), and response cost (9.2%). Besides, the sensitivity analysis for model 2 showed that perceived usefulness has the most considerable effect on the sustainable use of blockchain technology with 100% normalized importance. However, expectation confirmation has 29.2%. Theoretically, integrating the PMT and ECM will add significant value to the validation of the two theories in general and the blockchain in specific. Practically, understanding the impact of security factors would assist in understanding the effect of security incidents on the sustainable use of technology in higher educational institutions. In addition, governments, academia, businesses, and individuals often tend to share resources over a distributed ledger secured by means of cryptography. Blockchain technology also helps in facilitating the traceable, secure, and verifiable exchange of educational data across institutions effectively. Methodologically, the use of SEM-ANN in validating such theoretical models is rarely used, and hence, it would add value to the existing literature by measuring the non-linear relationships among the factors.