ABSTRACT
Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore the accessibility of online education for high school students in Thailand. It especially focuses on identifying the inequalities among Thai students in terms of availability of IT hardware, internet access, and IT skills by comparing the results of surveys of students in urban areas with those from students in rural areas within Thailand. Based on these findings and input from experts in the Thai education system, strategies to reduce digital inequalities are presented. Design/methodology/approach: To fulfill the objectives of this research, primary data is collected through online surveys with Thai high school students in order to explore digital inequalities. Additionally, semi-structured interviews with experts on Thai education are conducted in order to evaluate the findings from the students' survey responses and to generate bridging strategies. Moreover, a regional comparison based on findings from research conducted in neighboring countries will enable an analysis of the findings in an international context. Findings: This research provides information and insights into digital inequalities existing in the Thai education system. It reveals insights into the availability of IT hardware and access to the internet for online education, as well as the IT skills of high school students across Thailand. It highlights the differences in these areas between urban and rural locations within the country. Based on these findings, expert-backed recommendations are provided to bridge these inequalities. Originality/value: The demand for IT in education is increasing significantly. Recent developments, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have accelerated such trends. These rapid evolutions need to be explored regularly in order to inform appropriate intervention strategies. Therefore, this research contributes to academia and enhances the ability of stakeholders and decision-makers in Thailand's education sector to respond effectively to the increasing digital inequalities experienced by Thai high school students. © 2022 International Consortium for Electronic Business. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Misinformation affects people because it can convince them to believe in how to respond to uncertain situations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of misinformation or fake news were distributed on social media, in Thailand. This research aimed to study attributes and causes of Health-Related Misinformation Sharing in Thailand on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dataset used in this study was collected from the Anti-Fake News Center, the Thai government fact-checking website certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). In-depth interviews based on qualitative research technique were also conducted to identify the causes of the transmission of false health news on Thai social media by applying the rumors transmission concept during times of crisis and the theory of Uses and Gratifications. The findings showed five main themes of fake news: conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, fake advertisements, inaccurate information, and misleading information. These elements may establish a conceptual framework for finding the root cause of misinformation spreads during crises. Factors that affect how psychological information was presented and shared are anxiety, insecurity, and uncertainty during the crisis. However, belief is not the only justification for sharing this information because some social media users have shared unverified and no evidence information for personal purposes. The Uses and Gratifications theories are found relevant. This study is intended to broaden the reach of disseminating misleading information as much as possible to lessen the effect of detrimental health fake news on Internet news consumers. © 2022 International Consortium for Electronic Business. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Vaccine tourism is a new type of medical tourism that allows tourists to travel internationally to receive the vaccine occultation while they are traveling. There are strong possibilities that vaccine tourism will grow in popularity due to recent COVID-19 vaccine discrepancy between rich and poor countries and uncertainty of the current and future variation in diseases. Vaccine tourism can play important role to revive the stagnant tourism industry resulted from COVID-19 pandemic and serve as possible alternative type of tourism package for the future. This study aims to investigate factors that influence potential tourists to adopt vaccine tourism. Two hundred and fifty-four questionnaires were collected through tourism social media sites in Thailand. PLS-SEM was conducted to examine the causal relationships. The findings show that innovative and informative users are more likely to adopt vaccine tourism. The study confirms the need to consider personal attitudes when studying behavioral intentions. Furthermore, it highlights opportunities for the tourism industry to further promote the new type of medical tourism to the innovative and informative tourists.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has been disrupting people’s lives for the past two years. Countries worldwide tried to control the number of infections with new and enhanced information technology with varying results. This case study compares the information technologies used to control and combat the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand and Taiwan. This study aims to identify the contributing factors that make information technology become more effective in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. This data was gathered retrospectively from December 2019 to August 2021 from 46 subjects in both countries. The results have shown that the category of technology released was inconsistent with entering the stage of transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, policy factors such as the rigor of policy, credibility of government or related agencies, including social factors such as the public engagement, communication technology, and the diffusion of innovation, play a key role in enabling the technology to be more efficient for the control of COVID-19 pandemic. © 2021 International Consortium for Electronic Business. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
An increasing number of higher education institutions have embraced Cloud Computing Services (CCS) to better respond to the issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Cloud computing has helped to ease the process and lower the cost of offering online education and hybrid learning. However, some universities in Thailand face cloud computing adoption challenges because students lack awareness of the benefits and risks of CCS. Therefore, it is vital to identify the critical factors affecting the initial and continuance adoption of CCS by students in less developed countries. This study adopts a trade-off lens to assess the impact of the perceived usefulness and perceived risks regarding students' attitudes toward the initial and continuing adoption of CCS. Using a survey of CCS from a large public university in Thailand, we found that performance expectation and effort expectation positively affect perceived usefulness, and that authentication risks positively affect perceived risks. We also found that perceived usefulness rather than perceived risks is a deciding factor in adopting CCS. Higher education institutions in Thailand can accelerate the adoption of CCS by improving students' perceived performance and reducing the perceived risks.