Discussion

users' acceptance of a new technology. Based on Ajzen's (1991) TPB and Compeau & Higgins' (1995) SCT, Jung's (2015a) study found that anxiety has no significance in English learners’ behavioral intention to adopt smart learning.

On the other hand, Jung's (2015b) study of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) revealed that as anxiety is reduced, English learners’ intention to use mobile learning increases. Besides, Brown (2002) claimed that computer anxiety is a determinant of perceived ease of using e-learning systems. Lee and Jang (2003), extending Davis' (1989) TAM, argued that anxiety influences rather behavioral intention than perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and self-efficacy. In short, anxiety as a learner attribute is a very delicate issue and the impacts of anxiety on not only language achievement but perceived ease of use can not be guaranteed.

In addition, the college EFL learners' attitude toward blended learning was found to be a determinant of their academic achievement. Several theories, including Davis' (1989) TAM, have verified the strong relationship between attitude and behavior. The findings in the current study are coincident with those in existing research demonstrating that positive attitude influences their behavioral intention (Davis et al., 1992). In other words, learners’ attitude toward English learning using the blended system plays a significant role in their decisions about whether, when, and how they will use the system for study. If they have a positive feeling about the technology-enhanced learning system for English study, their behavioral intention to use such system would be high, resulting in academic performance; on the contrary, negative attitude can create a major barrier to use of the blended learning system (Shih, 2008). In short, a changed attitude can significantly change the IS use for language learning (Krosnick & Petty, 1995).

The second research question of which contextual components of blended learning affect college English students’ achievement is also answered; that is, the more positive perceptions of usefulness and interactivity of the technology-based course for English learning learners have, the more chances

are that they can achieve their goals. However, it is not observable that not only perceived ease of technology use but variety of the blended course has a direct effect on EFL learners' academic achievement in the context of blended learning.

First, perceived ease of use of the blended learning system did not show a direct effect on learners' English academic achievement. Davis' (1989) original TAM assumed that perceived ease of use does not influence the use of IS, even though it does influence perceived usefulness. Davis stated that “perceived ease of use may actually be a causal antecedent to perceived usefulness, as opposed to a parallel, direct determinant of system usage” (p. 319). And, a lot of prior studies have supported that perceived ease of use has a significant effect not only on perceived usefulness but also on attitude toward using and behavioral intention (Adams et al., 1992; Davis, 1989; Venkatesh & Morris, 2000).

Nevertheless, there is a long-running dispute over whether perceived ease of use is directly related to the decision of technology acceptance and behavior of actual use. The perceived ease of use, as illustrated in the review of previous research, was posed by a question of whether the variable holds power of explanation in an educational context or not; hereby, it is identified that the variable does not statistically.

On the contrary, EFL learners' perceived usefulness of the blended learning system was highly correlated with academic achievement. Actually, a substantial amount of prior research including Davis' (1989) TAM has substantiated the dominant variable. As Compeau and Higgins' (1995) claim, it is not surprising that individuals would use an online learning system if they perceived positive benefits associated with the use. And EFL learners will not voluntarily use IS that is easy but useless. Instead, they will use the system that is useful. Ndubisi (2006) also asserted that perceived usefulness directly has a positive relationship with system use for online learning. Obviously, the direct impact of perceived usefulness in the context of blended learning will lead to students' academic performance. Therefore, there is no disagreement that perceived usefulness influences use of instructional technology and the learning outcomes arisen from

the use.

Also, learners' perceptions on interactivity of blended learning showed its statistical relevance in college EFL learners' academic achievement. Social interactivity has been emphasized as a sine qua non of knowledge construction (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996). In particular, the proponents of blended learning have underscored interactivity as the number one advantage of this learning mode, as said in the literature review. Within the interactive social network, knowledge construction is made up in the process of mutual interactions for verifying and negotiating the meanings. As such, people's knowledge is internalizing what are acquired through interactivity, and interactions between learners and interacting environments can positively affect their satisfaction (Rafaeli, 1988), time savings (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997), and learning achievement (Hay, Hodgkinson, Peltier & Drago, 2004). In further details, Kearsley (1995) contended that one of the most important factors in e-learning is interactivity, and a high level of interactivity exerts a positive effect upon all the learning processes. Dholakia et al. (2001) maintained that as learners more and more interact with providers of learning, whether instructors or learning media, learning effectiveness will be enhanced. As such, the significance of interactivity seems to be high. This is because a determinant of actual learning is not learning content itself but whether effective interactivity actually happened or not in the learning process (Bloom, 1981; Chou, 2003; Trentin, 2000).

Lastly, the effect of contextual variety of the blended learning course on English achievement was not observed in the results of statistical analysis. Most of preceeding studies have validated that variety or richness is not directly related to technology acceptance and system use, but indirectly related to. For example, in a horizontal extension of Davis' (1989) TAM, it was found that social presence and information richness (i.e. variety) are of relevance in perceived usefulness of e-mail (Gefen & Straub, 1997); another extension also presented the effect of a variety of information on perceived usefulness (Straub, Limayem,

& Karahanna Evaristo, 1995).