Adaptation and Validation of a Shortened Version of the Technostress Scale in Peruvian University Students

Abstract

The fast-paced adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in education has brought many changes to the way learning environments are created, providing flexibility of access to learning sources while, at the same time, posing some behavioral and psychological problems for the learners. Frequent use of the technology-based platforms in the educational process can cause mental strain, problems related to adaptation to technologies and ICTs-related stress, which may affect the learning process and engagement in the use of digital technologies. This paper presents and justifies a measurement framework for assessing ICT-induced technostress in the context of university education to reveal psychological obstacles faced by students studying within the technology-supported learning environment. A non-experimental, quantitative, cross-sectional study was carried out involving 306 undergraduate students from Peruvian universities using the modified Technostress Scale. The framework evaluates five important dimensions of using digital technologies: fatigue, skepticism, addiction, anxiety, and inefficiency. CFA and SEM analysis tools have been used to establish the validity, reliability, and performance of the proposed conceptual framework. The results show that there is high internal consistency through the values of McDonald’s Omega (ω ≥ 0.70), good factor loadings (λ ≥ 0.50), and great model fit performance with the values of CFI = 0.986, TLI = 0.975, SRMR = 0.026, and RMSEA = 0.058. The validated framework offers empirical knowledge about the psychological determinants that affect ICT adoption among university students and makes an important contribution to human-centered information systems research by providing a reliable way of identifying ICT barriers.