A Review of the Literature: Determinants of Online ... - EuroJournals

European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 8, Number 2 (2009)
The more convinced a student is of the advantages of online education, the more likely the
student is to have a positive attitude towards online education. Aversion is one of the elements that will
influence students’ behavioural intention to use online learning in their learning process. According to
Habibah Hj. Lateh and Arumugam Raman (2005), students who promote positive attitude will also
promote achievement, liking, and learning. Hence, with a low level of aversion and higher level of
liking, students will have more intention to use online learning. Consequently, students will perform
well in their online courses.
Learners’ attitudes toward computers and online courses will positively influence learners’
satisfaction and acceptance of online learning (Sun et al., 2008). The TAM has clearly stated that
learner attitude is an important factor in influencing the use of new technologies (Davis, 1989). In other
words, learners with positive attitude will have higher acceptance of the use of online learning rather
than those who do not have positive attitude. Accordingly, this will result in higher performance of the
learners in their learning process. Negative attitude such as having less interest and negative
impression will influence a learner’s readiness to accept online learning. Students who have an
aversion of online learning system will affect acceptance of online learning in their learning process.
This argument strengthens the notion used to define a student’s attitude towards online education.
Another negative attitude, for example, the learners’ anxiety can decrease their tendency to use
online learning technologies (Habibah Hj. Lateh & Arumugam Raman, 2005). Learners’ anxiety seems
to be a vital variable in relation to students’ perceptions of online courses (Saade & Kira, 2006).
According to Rezaei, Mohammadi, Asadi and Kalantary (2008), computer anxiety has a negative effect
on students’ intention to use an online learning system.
A study done by Singleton, Song, Hill, Koh, Jones and Barbour (2004), reported that students
seemed to prefer to attend class rather than take the course online because they are more familiar with
the traditional teaching and learning environment. Moreover, students felt that questions could be
resolved immediately in a traditional classroom setting (Singleton et al., 2004). Hence, students had
only a tepid interest in online learning which lacked face-to-face interaction. However, successful
online learning should be just like traditional face-to-face learning which must have interactions among
students, and between students and instructors. Therefore, the more confident the student is with online
courses through the Internet, the more likely he or she is to have a positive attitude towards online
education, and have higher incentive to use online learning (Tabatabaei, Schrottner & Reichgelt, 2006).
In addition, Tabatabaei et al. (2006) also stated that the more familiar the student is with the material
used in a particular course, students develop more positive attitudes towards online delivery of the
course.
In summary, positive attitudes toward online learning can encourage and motivate students to
participate in online courses as well as online activities. Hence it is important that negative attitudes
such as aversion and anxiety should be reduced or eliminated to ensure that students embrace online
learning successfully.
4.1.3. Perceived Usefulness
Perceived usefulness is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system
would enhance his or her job performance” (Davis, 1989, p. 320). This means that if students perceive
that the online learning system can help improve their work performance, they are more likely to use
online learning in their learning process. Therefore, an online learning with a high level of perceived
usefulness, then there is a positive influence on the users’ performance (Ong & Lai, 2006). A
significant research has shown that perceived usefulness has a positive effect on students’ behaviour to
use online learning (Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). As such, students are more likely to use online
learning when they perceive online learning to be useful and create meaningful learning process for
them where they can learn in a more effective way and attain a higher performance in their studies.
Sun et al. (2008) stated that perceived usefulness of the online learning system would positively
influence the learners’ satisfaction with online learning. At the same time, perceived usefulness of an
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