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This study investigated undergraduate students' intention to use wiki technology. An extension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been used by taking into account not only students' wiki perceived utility and usability, but also Big Five personality characteristics and two other variables, social norms, and facilitating conditions, as proposed in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Students' beliefs before (pre-wiki scenario) and after (post-wiki scenario) the actual use of the wiki system were investigated, with 85 and 86 participants respectively. The hypotheses were tested using partial least squares analysis. For the pre-wiki scenario, 8/15 hypotheses were confirmed and 11/15 for the post-wiki scenario. The relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness was found to be of the highest magnitude. The most notable difference across the two scenarios was that the relation between perceived ease of use and attitudes towards use was significant only in the first scenario. The results demonstrate that the proposed TAM-extended model could predict students' wiki acceptance.

The influence of students' non-cognitive characteristics on their learning performance constitutes a significant but rather unexplored topic. The goal of the research presented in this article, is to examine the relation between the students' personality characteristics (as measured using the Big Five Personality Test) and their learning outcome in the context of four framed wiki-based learning activities. 368 university students participated in the studies. Meta-analysis of results indicates that learning gain was significant negatively correlated with one of the five basic personality dimensions, namely Extraversion. Also, agreeableness was significant positively correlated with learning gain. Moreover, conscientiousness and emotionally stability were significant positively correlated with logged wiki edits that students made in this activity. It is argued, and discussed, that results from such studies can lead to useful conclusions regarding the design of appropriate activities and the creation of more effective collaborative teams in the context of wiki-based web activities.

A considerable interest in using Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis in education has been observed recently. Despite the advantages of the wiki technology, a number of questions concerning design of appropriate activities and their learning effectiveness remain open. In this paper, we present the results of three activities involving first-year university students using wikis to learn basic concepts related to information technology. Three activities of different classes were designed and delivered to the students using the framework proposed by West and West (2009). In all studies, a one-group pretest-posttest design was adopted. Results illustrated significant improvement in learning outcomes, particularly for students with low initial performance. The average students' questionnaire score jumped from 39.0/100 to 57.3/100. No significant effect of both students' role in the activity and their school stream on learning gain was observed. Finally, regardless of the activity's class and learning goal, a persistent pattern of high learning gain was observed.

A considerable interest in using Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis in education has been observed recently. Despite the advantages of the wiki technology, a number of questions concerning design of appropriate activities and their learning effectiveness remain open. In this paper, we present the results of three activities involving first-year university students using wikis to learn basic concepts related to information technology. Three activities of different classes were designed and delivered to the students using the framework proposed by West and West (2009). In all studies, a one-group pretest-posttest design was adopted. Results illustrated significant improvement in learning outcomes, particularly for students with low initial performance. The average students' questionnaire score jumped from 39.0/100 to 57.3/100. No significant effect of both students' role in the activity and their school stream on learning gain was observed. Finally, regardless of the activity's class and learning goal, a persistent pattern of high learning gain was observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]