Resumen de Factors influencing graduate students’ preference of software tools for building engineering applications
Victoria Eugenia García-Vera, Esther Chiner Sanz
Based on previous research on technology acceptance models, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of fourvariables (perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, output quality and enjoyment) on students’ intentions to use GoogleDrive Spreadsheet and Arquimedes software for budgeting and measurement purposes in the Building Engineeringcontext, as well as students’ preferences to use each program. A sample of 92 students received training in both programsand evaluated them. Results suggest that students prefer Google Drive Spreadsheet in the academic context andArquimedes in the professional context. Findings also show a significant effect of perceived usefulness and output qualityon usage intentions of both applications, as well as an effect of output quality on perceived usefulness. However, withrespect to the rest of variables, differences were found between Google Drive Spreadsheet and Arquimedes. While in thecase of Google Drive Spreadsheet perceived usefulness and output quality worked as mediators of enjoyment, andperceived ease of use had no significant effect on any variable, in the case of Arquimedes all the variables had a significanteffect on usage intentions. These results suggest that when a technology is perceived as very easy to utilize, such as GoogleDrive Spreadsheet, the variable perceived ease of use has very little or no impact on individuals’ intentions to use thattechnology. Findings are discussed in terms of its implications for practice and further research.
