User Acceptance of Key Performance Indicators Management Systems in a Higher Education Institution in Malaysia: A Pilot Study

This article discusses the users’ acceptance of two performance management systems, namely Excel Spreadsheet System (ESS) and Key Performance Indicator Monitoring System (KPI-MS). Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is an index used in measuring an individual’s, organization’s or institution’s performance. ESS is a system provide by Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and has been in used since year 2008. KPI-MS was developed later as a tool using PHP 5.2 and MySQL Community Server 5.0 databases with determination to replace ESS which has several shortcomings. The acceptance study of both management systems is in terms of its accuracy, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. This study was done by using a survey questionnaire. The instrument of this study was developed and modified from Davis’s Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). A total of 19 participants from two of the campuses of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) participated in this study. This research instrument had been validated by three experts in the related field and scored reliability at Cronbach alpha value of 0.843. A comparison study was done to evaluate the accuracy of KPI-MS while descriptive analysis was conducted to determine the mean scores of KPI-MS and ESS rated by users. The findings showed that KPI-MS computed KPI marks accurately and the users also rated KPI-MS as more useful in monitoring KPI performance of their schools or centres compared to ESS. Besides, the users also indicated KPI-MS is more user-friendly. In conclusion, KPI-MS system is prefered by the users as an effective system.