Factors Influencing Students' Continuous Willingness to Use E-Learning Platforms in Higher Education

Factors Influencing Students' Continuous Willingness to Use E-Learning Platforms in Higher Education

Zeyun Li
DOI: 10.4018/IJICTE.313424
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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed significant challenges on education worldwide, particularly in areas with limited online teaching experience. The research design is based on constructivism learning theory and the technology acceptance model. A questionnaire was also distributed to a university of finance and economics in China. Structural equation model was used to test the influence mechanism of social media interaction on college students' willingness to use e-learning platform continuously. The positive moderating effect of online teaching context on this mechanism is further analyzed. Therefore, the use of social media in the online teaching process in higher education institutions should be encouraged, and a good online teaching context should be fostered.
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1. Introduction

E-learning refers to acquiring learning resources and training services in a more convenient means by using information technologies such as the internet and multimedia system, ultimately achieving the purpose of improving learning quality (Hao et al., 2017). This educational method using modern equipment and technology can provide learners with virtual teaching, mobile learning, computer training, internet training, and other services, as well as learning in the home, workplace, or at any time, anywhere learning provides a convenient, improve the learning efficiency, overcoming the spatiotemporal restriction more absolutely. With the outbreak of COVID-19, many countries and regions have chosen to close offline educational institutions. While lockdown and social distancing are the only ways to break the chain and slow the spread of the virus, the closure of educational institutions has had an impact on students completing their studies on time. Online teaching enables educational resources to overcome the limitation of spatial distance through the network, which is of great significance to education and should be widely studied and paid attention to (Tang et al., 2017).

Although information and communication technology has been widely applied in people's daily life (Pimmer et al., 2016), there is still a general lack of clear motivation and learning conditions to adopt e-learning (Demir K, et al. 2006). However, the current technological conditions and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have provided sufficient motivation for learners to learn online, and the successful promotion of e-learning will also depend on users' needs (Shang G, et al. 2012). Before the outbreak of COVID-19, most of the users willing to accept e-learning were part-time learners (Karimi & Sahar, 2016). Today, e-learning has become an important part of higher education, which can be conducted officially or unofficially, and is one of the tools to enrich active learning (Dobre, 2015). As of June 2021, the number of online education users in China was 325 million, accounting for 32.1% of the total internet users, according to the 48th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China. Such a large scale shows the importance of ensuring the healthy and orderly development of online education. In today's era, the online platform has been transformed into an important way for knowledge sharing and active collaborative learning (Al-Rahmi et al., 2018).

Based on the socio-cultural theory of learning, people acquire knowledge through social interaction, exchange of ideas, and sharing of experiences to facilitate cognitive change. At present, online education and sharing platforms have been widely used, so it is particularly important to study and discuss e-learning methods. Based on the constructivism learning theory and the technology acceptance model, this study investigates the influence mechanism of network interaction in higher education on college students' e-learning behavioral intention and the moderating role of online teaching context in this mechanism. The results of this study will help to understand the e-learning context of Chinese college students and other educated students, and reveal part of the influencing factors of e-learning behavioral intention.

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