What Affects the Adoption of Metaverse in Education? A SEM-based Approach

Metaverse is an emerging 3D digital space that augments the real world and the virtual world. It has been envisioned to be the trendsetter for future education having tremendous potential. However, the success of any new technology depends on its mass adoption and widespread societal diffusion. Therefore, it becomes important to understand the factors that can lead to its success by ensuring widespread adoption. In this work, we investigate the different psychological gratifications of the educational usage of Metaverse under the lens of the Uses and Gratification (UGT) theory. Particularly, we propose and test a research model by using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach by considering four fundamental psychological gratifications of autonomy, achievement, affiliation, and dominance, together with two additional factors of hedonic motivation and student personality. Data is collected from two Asian universities, and results show the importance of autonomy, hedonic motivation, and personality in predicting Metaverse adoption.