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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 249
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 8, Number 2(2009) online learning system will influence the behavioural intention to use such system (Ong & Lai, 2006). A significant body of prior research had shown that perceived usefulness has a positive effect on behavioral intention to use (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Venkatash & Morris, 2000; Davis, 1989). In other words, when more students perceive online learning based on its usefulness in their learning process, it is more likely they are going to use online learning. Suffice to say, it is important for students to perceive online learning as useful. When students perceive online learning as such, the likelihood of them using online learning would be higher (Ong & Lai, 2006; Tung & Chang, 2008; Sun et al., 2008; Rezaei, Mohammadi, Asadi & Kalantary, 2008). 4.1.4 Perceived Ease of Use Ease of use is defined as the degree to which a person would be free of effort when using a system (Davis, 1989). According to Ong and Lai (2006), the higher the degree the students believe that online learning is easy to use, the higher the opportunities and acceptance of online learning are among the students. As such, web designers play an important role in developing an educational website which is suitable for the students. For example, according to Siti Hafizah Ab. Hamid and Yii (2006), a website for students to learn such as to learn calculus, it should be more users’ friendly, have interface simplicity, and be easy to use and control in order to ensure that all types of learners can use the system well and effectively. In addition, Ong and Lai (2006) indicated that perceived ease of use influences the behavioural intention of learners to use online learning. When the learners perceive an online learning system as easy to use, then it is highly likely that they will be satisfied with the system (Sun et al., 2008). When the learners are satisfied with the system, the likelihood of registering for an online course is also higher. For example, the ease of use of discussion board to interact with other learners and instructors can increase students’ confidence to use online learning. This can be seen from how long and how frequent they access the Internet per week. The simpler and user friendly the online learning system is, more opportunities are available. Learners accept the online learning environment and remain online longer. The theory and relevant background literature have confirmed that it is valid to perceive usefulness and perceive ease of use to determine students’ behavioural intention to use online learning system. 5. Conclusion Online learning is considered as an alternative learning environment to traditional face to face learning (Sun et al., 2008). It has been widely implemented in many higher institutions of learning around the world. The world wide web has been used as a medium to conduct online learning and this has made learning more complex in such learning environment (Sun et al., 2008). For this reason, the main purpose of this review paper was to explore the factors that could influence the use of online learning among students. This paper offered a review of previous studies exploring several possible factors that could be considered as the determinants of online learning. Based on the review of literature, the author of this paper suggest that four main factors namely, gender, attitudes toward online learning, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness can influence students’ use of online learning. It is important that these four factors are taken into consideration by online learning instructors to reduce the dropout rates in online learning courses. 250
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