Technostress in university students' technology-enhanced learning: An investigation from multidimensional person-environment misfit

Abstract

This study investigated technostress among university students in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) from a multidimensional person-environment misfit perspective: technostress on the dimensions of person-organization (P-O) misfit, person-TEL (P-TEL) misfit, and person-people (P-O) misfit, respectively. A research model was created to examine how the three dimensions of technostress were related to one another and how they predicted students’ burnout, persistence in TEL, and perceived performance. It was validated by 740 university students from two public universities in China. The findings show that P-O misfit of technostress strongly predicted technostress on both P-TEL misfit and P-P misfit dimensions. P-P misfit of technostress predicted P-TEL misfit of technostress. The three dimensions of technostress were positively associated with students’ burnout, which negatively affected their perceived performance in TEL. Moreover, P-O misfit of technostress demonstrated the most salient effect on students’ burnout. Additionally, group comparisons based on gender and grade levels indicate that females and lower-grade students were more susceptible to burnout associated with P-P misfit of technostress than others. And female students’ performance tended to be more negatively affected by burnout than males. This study has important implications for disentangling factors affecting students’ wellbeing and academic success in TEL and developing effective solutions to technostress.