Measuring Technology Acceptance, Creativity Development, and Narrative Quality in Virtual Simulation-Based Storyboard Learning: A Pilot Validation Study

Abstract

While there is a certain degree of overlap, research conducted in creative and technical domains using simulation-based learning has typically used technology-acceptance tools and/or measures of creativity and narrative quality with few studies combining both constructs. This void makes the field unable to account for why learners embrace an immersion-based learning system and whether the immersive learning system is effective in enhancing the creative and narrative abilities that it aims to build. In order to close that gap, this article describes the creation and pilot psychometric validation of an integrated EDIPT–UTAUT2 instrument. This instrument consists of a 40-item, eight-construct questionnaire that combines two learning-outcome constructs that are adapted from current creativity and visual-narrative theory (creativity development, narrative quality) with six constructs from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, behavioral intention, and use behavior). A selected sample of 33 undergraduate students with technology-enhanced learning were given the instrument after it had been structurally modified and content verified. The internal-consistency reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) scores for all eight constructs ranged from 0.75 to 0.90, with creativity development exhibiting the highest reliability (α = 0.90) and use behavior the lowest (α = 0.75), both of which were within or above the generally recognized threshold. Two of the original UTAUT2 model's constructs, social influence and habit, were purposefully left out of the final instrument on theoretical grounds since they didn't seem to be as pertinent to the planned, time-bound experimental treatments. The resultant instrument provides a psychometrically solid foundation for the broader structural model presented elsewhere in this research program and has strong internal consistency and concept clarity. The entire instrument-development process is fully recorded from conceptualization to theoretical basis, item generation, content validation, pilot test administration, and reliability analysis, in such a way that it provides detailed methods for the replication and easy adaptation by other researchers who are developing measurement instruments for immersive and creativity-oriented educational technologies.