Investigating the Social Sustainability of Immersive Virtual Technologies in Higher Educational Institutions: Students’ Perceptions toward Metaverse Technology

Abeer F. Alkhwaldi ()
Additional contact information
Abeer F. Alkhwaldi: Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business, Mutah University, Karak 61710, Jordan

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 2, 1-24

Abstract: The Metaverse technology (MVTECH) is an immersive virtual sphere where people interact with each other via avatars. The MVTECH promised to provide a number of potentials for various sectors including higher education. Despite the fact that MVTECH promotes virtual social interaction between people (e.g., university students), there is a lack of knowledge on what affects users’ perceptions regarding its social sustainability in HEIs, specifically in developing nations. Therefore, this research paper aims to determine the variables that affect the learners’ perceptions toward social sustainability (SS) of MVTECH in higher educational institutions (HEIs) in Jordan. A study model was formulated by integrating the core factors of the “unified theory of acceptance and use of technology” (UTAUT) (“performance expectancy, PE; effort expectancy, EE; social influence, SI; and facilitating conditions, FC”) with “perceived curiosity” (PC) and “extraversion” (EXT) factors. Both PC and EXT were included as context-related variables that may possibly contribute to enhancing the applicability of UTAUT to a wide range of information technologies and settings. Data were collected from 422 students enrolled in Jordanian universities based on an online survey. The analysis of the “structural equation modeling” (SEM) found that students’ perceptions toward Metaverse were significantly influenced by PE, FC, and EXT. Furthermore, the PC construct significantly affected the EE construct. However, EE and SI were revealed to have no significant impact on SS. Drawing from these results, the study makes a number of theoretical advances and clarifies a number of practical implications for those involved in the development, design, and decision-making processes that support the use of the Metaverse in HEIs.

Keywords: Metaverse; social sustainability; UTAUT; extraversion; curiosity; developing nations; HEIs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/2/934/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/2/934/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:934-:d:1324074

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().