Due to the limitations of traditional didactic teaching, inquiry-based teaching has attracted increasing attention and has become an important content of curriculum teaching reform in college education. Nevertheless, it is vital to investigate students’ subjective acceptance of inquiry-based instruction and its influencing factors before inquiry-based teaching methods are widely implemented.
In light of this, taking into account the psychological factors of students, an acceptance model of inquiry-based teaching pedagogy was established based on the extended technology acceptance model (TAM). Three additional variables, namely self-efficacy, implementation quality, and risk perception, were incorporated into the TAM. Firstly, subjective evaluation data of the influencing factors of inquiry teaching acceptance were obtained through a network questionnaire survey from university students in Guangdong, China, using snowball sampling and convenient sampling. A total of 485 valid questionnaires were retrieved, with an effective response rate of 88.2%. Then, internal consistency and reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity of the model and its hypothesis were tested with reliability and validity tests. Finally, path analysis was used to examine key determinants of students’ acceptance of inquiry teaching and moderators.
Results indicated that the constructed model can explain the acceptability of inquiry teaching for college students by 88.6%; Attitude has a positive significant impact on behavioral intention; Perceived ease of use indirectly affects behavioral intention through perceived usefulness, while perceived usefulness indirectly affects behavioral intention through attitude; self-efficacy not only directly affects behavioral intention but also indirectly affects behavioral intention through implementation quality; implementation quality indirectly affects behavioral intention through perceived usefulness and attitude; students’ risk perception of inquiry-based teaching has no negative impact on behavioral intention.
Overall, this study has implications for policymakers, teachers or learners in terms of the implementation and promotion of inquiry-based teaching in college classroom.