Using technology acceptance model to analyse the successful crowdfunding learning game campaigns

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University of South Florida

School of Information

Department of Computer Science

University of Northern Colorado

Department of Applied Statistics and Research Methods

Emporia State University

School of Library and Information Management

Using technology acceptance model to analyse the successful crowdfunding learning game campaigns

Hong Huang, PhD in Inform., Ass. Professor

Han Yu, PhD in Stat., Ass. Professor

Wanwan Li, PhD in Comp. Sci., Ass. Professor

Jinxuan Ma, PhD in Inform., Ass. Professor

Tampa, Florida, Greeley, Colorado, Emporia, Kansas, USA

Abstract

Due to the limited opportunities for financial supports to educators, Crowdfunding can be an effective channel to solicit funding sources for educators to develop new learning games. Understanding user perceptions of a successful learning game guided by Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) could help educators to effectively adapt Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in developing more competitive learning games and secure more funding. This study used a user survey to assess the success of Kickstarter-funded learning game projects.

Guided by TAM, the study derives eight perceived assessment dimensions, including three Usefulness dimensions:

- Representation mode, Narrative, Interaction; four Usability dimensions: Learning provision, Skill building, Rules, Assessment;

- and one Acceptance dimension: Motivation. The analysis of the online assessment survey (n = 115) revealed that successful funded learning game projects are focused on usefulness and usability.

Users perceived a wider gap between successful and unsuccessful crowdfunding learning games in Learning Provision, Representation Mode, and Skill building.

These enable game-based learning strategies by spelling out game rules that support learning provision in skill building, which is reflected in a detailed and in-depth narrative in a coherent representation layout. According to bivariate and multivariate analysis, among all eight dimensions, Representation mode, Interactivity, Skill building, Rules, Narrative and Learning provision are key factors that significantly associate with entrepreneurial success for the learning game development.

A crowdfunding learning game TAM based perception evaluation model was developed based on perceived acceptance, usefulness and usability. This study examines the pedagogical aspects of using TAM to analyze crowdfunding learning games to help educators better use ICT to create new learning games that provide more customized, active, and flexible learning experiences, improve feedback and assessment, and increase involvement and access to game development.

Keywords: Kickstarter; learning game campaign; collaboration; user perception.

Анотація

Використання моделі прийняття технології для аналізу успішних краудфандингових кампаній з навчальних ігор

Хонг Хуанг, PhD з інформації, доцент Школи інформації; Ваіваї Лі, PhD з комп'ютерних наук, запрошений доцент на кафедрі комп'ютерних наук, Університет Південної Флориди, м. Тампа, Флорида, США

Хань Ю, PhD в статистиці, доцент кафедри прикладної статистики та методів дослідження Університет Північного Колорадо, м. Грілі, Колорадо, США

Цзіньсюань Ма, PhD з інформації, доцент Школи бібліотечного та інформаційного менеджменту

Державний університет Емпорія, м. Емпорія, Канзас, США

Через обмежені можливості фінансової підтримки педагогів краудфандинг може бути ефективним каналом пошуку джерел фінансування для розробки нових навчальних ігор. Розуміння сприйняття користувачами успішної навчальної гри за допомогою моделі прийняття технології (МПТ) може допомогти вчителям ефективно адаптувати інформаційно - комунікаційні технології (ІКТ) у розробку більш конкурентоспроможних навчальних ігор, отримуючи більше фінансування.

У дослідженні використовувалося опитування користувачів з метою оцінювання успішності проектів з навчальних ігор, фінансованих Kickstarter. Керуючись МПТ, під час дослідження було визначено вісім вимірів оцінювання сприйняття: три виміри корисності - спосіб представлення, опис, взаємодія; чотири виміри зручності використання - забезпечення навчання, формування навичок, правила, оцінювання; один вимір - мотивація. Аналіз онлайн-опитування (n = 115) показав, що проекти з навчальних ігор, які були успішно фінансовані, в основному сфокусовані на корисності та зручності використання.

Користувачі відчули велику різницю між успішними та невдалими краудфандинговими навчальними іграми у вимірах забезпечення навчання, способу представлення та розвитку навичок. Такий підхід дає змогу використовувати ігрові стратегії навчання, прописуючи ігрові правила, які мають підтримати навчальний процес, спрямовуючи його на формування навичок, що повинно детально відображатися в узгодженому підготовленому макеті. Відповідно до двофакторного та багатоваріантного аналізу, серед усіх восьми вимірів спосіб представлення, взаємодія, формування навичок, правила, опис та забезпечення навчання є ключовими факторами, які значною мірою впливають на підприємницький успіх у розробці навчальної гри. Модель оцінювання сприйняття на основі краудфандингової навчальної гри МПТ була розроблена на основі сприйняття, корисності та зручності використання.

У представленому дослідженні розглядаються педагогічні аспекти використання МПТ для аналізу краудфандингових навчальних ігор, з метою допомогти викладачам краще використовувати ІКТ для створення нових навчальних ігор, які б забезпечували відповідно до вимог, активне і гнучке навчання, покращуючи зворотний зв'язок і оцінювання, а також підвищити залученість і доступ до розробки ігор.

Ключові слова: Kickstarter; кампанія з навчальних ігор; співпраця; сприйняття користувача.

Introduction

The problem statement. Since the introduction of educational video games in the 1970s, general games apply to kids regardless of gender have become increasingly reliant on video games as a means of learning [1,2]. It was estimated that over $137.9 trillion was invested in video games, with a global sale of $99.6 trillion [3]. Crowdfunding was used by game developers, practitioners, educators, and entrepreneurs to raise seed funding online for a specific game-based learning project. Crowdfunding allows entrepreneurs or small groups to fund their businesses by collecting small contributions from a large number of people via the Internet [4]. Through engagement, crowdfunding project founders can also build strong relationships with backers [5].

Crowdfunding campaigns also provide a new channel for small learning game fundraisers to receive start-up funds and community support from backers, donors, and potential users [3]. Seed funding, unlike crowdfunding, represents the initial capital provided to a startup by an entrepreneur, angel investors, or friends and family. This financial support serves as the foundation for micro start-ups, enabling them to grow their businesses [3,4]. On the other hand, crowdfunding involves seeking funding from the general public. Crowdfunding is a versatile method for raising funds from the public to support small creative projects. It offers flexibility in addressing diverse funding needs and goals. Two common approaches within crowdfunding are reward-based crowdfunding, where backers receive non-financial incentives, and equity- based crowdfunding, where investors gain a share or ownership in the venture [3,4]. This broad scope allows for the participation of a wide range of individuals and caters to various funding requirements.

Even though the average amount for a start-up project is small, grassroots entrepreneurial fundraisers make full use of the opportunity to solicit financial support via crowdfunding. For example, since its inception, Kickstarter, a well-known crowdfunding social media platform, according to Kickstarter Stats, has launched nearly 60k game-related projects, asking for $1.56 billion US dollars and successfully funding 1.45 billion dollars, ranking it as the best category to receive funding among others. However, more than half of the initial game-related crowdfunding projects were eventually abandoned. Crowdfunding platforms cater to a wide range of projects, including creative endeavors, entrepreneurial ventures, and charitable initiatives. According to [6], crowdfunding can be a valuable resource for educators, practitioners, nonprofits, and charitable organizations to raise funds for specific projects or endeavors that create something new and shareable.

There has been research into the quantitative factors that contribute to crowdfunding success, such as time period, geolocation, backers, image and word counts, and so on [7, 8, 9]. However, there is a scarcity of empirical research into user perceptions of key assessment factors for successful crowdfunding games. Game-based learning, its applications, and game development have all been extensively researched for their positive effects on skill development [10], and specific metrics for learning game assessment have been developed [11, 12]. There may have been different user expectations on funding-based learning game development, and there has been little research focusing on assessing entrepreneur success in game-based learning related crowdfunding ventures. As a result, it is critical to comprehend how users perceive the characteristics of successful learning games, as well as the significance of developing a solid and appealing initial public offering crowdfunding proposal. This paper examines the factors that influence the success of game-based learning crowdfunding ventures using empirical data.

Analysis of recent studies and publications. To gain a better understanding of the nature of crowdfunding, research has been conducted on key factors affecting the success of crowdfunding game projects [4]. The development of a learning game requires a small startup capital investment, and game developers have used crowdfunding to fund the initial investment in educational applications [13]. Independent entrepreneurs can easily promote and access their projects on online crowdfunding sites due to small scale funding. Fundraising for video games was the most popular category on the popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, according to statistics provided by Kickstarter, with nearly 60,000 projects launched and $1.46 billion in funding support. This will encourage entrepreneurs to join and launch projects through collaborative crowdfunding platforms.

A high-quality crowdfunding campaign or pitch is necessary and significantly helps to raise the desired funds [4]. The founders in crowdfunding are usually strongly evaluated on a personal level and a personal communication level as well as appearance, and this has a high impact on the investment decisions [14]. Game based learning crowdfunding initiatives increase content and ownership diversity [14], and work has been published to ensure that crowdfunding is successful [15]. User interface design, feedback and assessment mechanisms necessitate the implementation of ergonomic support to optimize the learning environment and materials, thereby enhancing the overall user experience [16,17]. The principle of ergonomic support can also be extended to enhance crowdfunding materials, aiming to establish a crowdfunding campaign that is centered on the user and effectively maximizes user satisfaction and engagement.

Research has also reported several dimensions such as developer credibility, reputation and social network crowdfunding experiences are related to crowdfunding success [14]. Campaign content, media elements, types of message cues used, duration of campaign, concreteness, and precision of information provided are reported to be relevant for the crowdfunding success [18, 19]. The roles of assessments often require human evaluation, rather than public data scrapping, with a few examples such as evaluations of creativity [20], innovativeness [21], quality [22] and scalability [22]. Research has shown a positive association between the use of concrete and precise language, length of campaign text, numbers of updates, video inclusion in campaign texts, and success [23]. This has indicated that the reduction of cognitive effort used in processing campaign information enhances the chance of funding [24].

Theoretical framework has been applied to explain and predict crowdfunding success. For example, The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is a theoretical framework, based on Ajzen and Fishbein's 1980 Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and first proposed by Davis in 1986, seeks to explain the determinants of software application acceptance [25]. According to Davis in1989, TAM has cognitive responses, triggered by the external stimuli which contain two components: perceived usability to which a person believes that a system has ease of use, and perceived usefulness, which focusing on the value of use for the system [25]. Also, affective response is also related to expected enjoyment toward acceptance of adopting a system [25, 26]. These three factors impact a user's attitude and behavior toward the actual use of a certain technology. It explains user behavior through using two main predictors: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use [27].

Figure 1. Technology Acceptance Model for crowdfunding adapted and modified from Davis 1993 and Thaker et al., 2018's TAM, and Neilsen 1994's framework for usability

For instance, Lacan and Desmet in 2017 have used Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as the theoretical framework to analyze the attitudes of contributors/ investors towards crowdfunding [28]. Numerous researches have reported that using TAM can explain behavioral intention to adopt crowdfunding [29, 30].

In Nielsen's information hierarchy framework (1994) [31], usability is part of usefulness which is part of practical acceptability, and finally, part of system acceptability. Usability deals with the system features for ease of use, however, measuring the usefulness and focusing on the values could include key useful features that are critical to justify investment decisions. This enables them to be much more productive.

As for the content quality for a game-based learning application, research has reported the key assessment criteria that contributes to high quality content in educational applications [32, 33]. In Lee and Cherner 2015's work, they present a thorough list of rubrics with 24 evaluative dimensions for analyzing the educational apps [32]. These dimensions can be classified into three aspects: Education, to measure the app's educational values; Design, to assess the level of interaction and efficiency; and Engagement, for how to motivate the users. Rubrics that contained exhaustive list of evaluation items have a few categories of educational content: design, functionality, and technical characteristics [33]. Annetta and Bronack proposed an assessment rubric for educational games based on the educational principles and presented comprehensive evaluation criteria in each context where learning will take place using learning games [34].

Tricot and other scholars in 2003 proposed three dimensions for evaluating learning games based on product intention of use: usability, usefulness, and acceptability [36]. In other words, whether users are positive or negative regarding the product, their "intention" of use depends on many parameters: motivation, affects, culture, and values. Assessing dimensions were proposed based on context-based factors such as the availability of specific resources and technologies, the organization of the curriculum, the time devoted to the use of the learning game, and the use of additional resources, depending on the ease of use, utility, and acceptability [36]. Similarly, game-based learning crowdfunding campaigns can be assessed based on the representation, organization, educational content, and context of related resources in the campaign's funding proposal. Table 1 showed the assessment dimensions for learning game and related literature.

In this study, Usefulness is concerned with pedagogical effectiveness [36]. This category evaluates the learning game's impact on the learner's knowledge and skills. This category of criteria addresses the question of whether the learning game enables the people targeted to learn what they are supposed to learn. This study included four criteria: Learning provision, Skill building, Rules, and Assessment (Table 1). Usability refers to the user's ability to successfully complete the learning game tasks that the designer intends them to be able to complete. This category of criteria answers the question: is the learning game simple to use, use, and reuse, without wasting time or making handling mistakes? There were three criteria in this study: Representation mode, Narrative, and Interactivity (Table 1). Acceptance refers to the decision to use the learning game [36]. This category is related to assessing the value of the learning game and includes attitudes and opinions about the learning artifact. This set of criteria addresses the question of whether the learning game is compatible with motivation. There was one criterion in this study: motivation (Table 1).

Table 1