Acceptance of Pedagogical Agent (PA) enhanced eLearning communities by software engineering students in Southern Africa

Covid19 outbreak has seen eLearning becoming a viable alternative to the traditional face-to-face teaching globally. Software engineering education has not been an exception to these changes. The use of multimedia enhanced eLearning communities is also on the increase in the teaching of software engineering. However, there is limited research on the acceptance of such tecnologies by African learners. Some of the multimedia being used to enhance these learning communities includes animated pedagogical agents (Pas) combining text, animation, audio, and video. Considering learner differences and aiming to achieve personalized learning, there is a need for institutions to understand how such tecnologies are being accepted by learners and the factors that influence the acceptance. This study focuses on the acceptance of pedagogical agent enhanced eLearning communities by Southern African learners in the teaching os Software Engineering. The aim of the study is to identify the factors that influence the acceptance of such communities. This will help eLearning designers to try and address the needs of learners in diferent contexts to achieve personalized learning. This study involved 137 software engineering students from South Africa and Zimbabwe who were being introduced to eLearning cimmunity enhanced with Pas. The unified theoryof acceptance and use of technology2 (UTAUT2) was used in this study. The study revealed that only performance expectancy, and hedonic motivation constructs ha dan effect on behavioral intention to use these eLearning communities enhanced with Pas.