Constructing an educational policy acceptance model to explore attitudes toward policy implementation: Using an industrial competency standards system in science and technology universities

Studies related to the effectiveness of policy making have been focused on the concerns of domain experts, not stakeholders. The purpose of this study was to construct an acceptance model of educational policy to explore competency standards integration, and technical–vocational education and teaching. Based on the perspectives of professors from science and technology universities, this study examined the correlations among teaching progressive beliefs, perceived ease of policy understanding and application, perceived value to students, and attitudes toward policy implementation. Quantitative data from 257 participants were collected for confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling. The results revealed that teaching progressive beliefs was positively related to perceived ease of policy understanding and application to teaching settings; perceived ease of policy understanding and application were positively associated with value to students; and value to students was positively correlated with attitude toward policy implementation. In addition, teaching progressive beliefs positively predicted the implementation attitude that was mediated by the perceived value of policies; however, perceived ease of policy understanding and application were essential in explaining the expectancy–value research model. This study suggested that formalization of the policy acceptance model can be applied to explore other policies related to education and policy making for understanding stakeholders’ attitudes toward the implementation of new policies.