E-learning continuance: The impact of interactivity and the mediating role of imagery, presence and flow

This paper empirically examines the impact of the interactivity elicited by e-learning environments for higher education. By considering the underlying processes of imagery, spatial presence, copresence and flow, we analyse how interactivity affects users' responses towards the learning environment, including their actual continuance behaviour. We validate our conceptual model by using survey and registrar data obtained from 2530 students of an open, distance university in the European Higher Education Area. The results suggest that the interactivity elicited by an e-learning environment unleashes imagery that in turn facilitates spatial presence and copresence as well as flow. Significant paths are also found from interactivity to flow and from flow to e-learner response variables (attitude, intention to continue and actual continuance behaviour). The paper provides a novel account of the presence and flow-enabling mechanisms in e-learning and offers novel knowledge on how higher education institutions can facilitate e-learners' continuance behaviour.