learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Faculty development
Online course design and pedagogy
Latefa Bin Fryan and Lampros Stergioulas
However, these factors are not sufficient as they neglect other important learning aspects such as
time and location independence focusing mostly on the management-type of CSFs; on the other hand
Park and Wentling (2007) presents another set of CSFs that focuses on the CSFs from the individual
or personal perspective, suggesting that the popularity of eLearning is due to the following factors:
Space flexibility
Cost savings
Timely access to educational resources
Workplace flexibility
Increased students interest
Quick response to the student
6. Findings and analysis
In order to: “Identify and prioritise the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for the adoption of eLearning in
the educational institutions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)”. The data was collected through
primary and secondary data sources and then analysed using the interpretative qualitative analysis.
Findings from the secondary data collection are already presented in the Literature Review.
The primary data were collected through conducting semi-structured interviews and a questionnairebased
survey in order to extract the CSFs for the adoption of eLearning in KSA. For this purpose,
FIVE different KSA educational institutions including universities and eLearning training centres were
considered. The participants were chosen according to their related jobs in the area of eLearning in
KSA to ensure high quality and consistent findings. The questions for both the interview and the
survey were designed keeping into consideration the literature surveyed about the adoption of
eLearning. Findings from the interviews and the survey were prioritised according to their significance
in terms of their average or cumulative percentage importance from five educational institutions (the
repetition of each CSFs).
The data collected from both sources was interpreted and qualitatively analysed. The CSFs found
from the primary and secondary data collection were listed in individual tables and then mapped to
each other in another table in order to show the relationships amongst various CSFs; finally the
findings were analysed using Miles and Huberman (1994) scale, and the CSFs were ranked in order
of significance. The resulting CSFs are presented in table 1.
Findings from the interviews and survey questionnaires confirm the anecdotal evidence reflected in
the literature. Most of the CSFs found through primary data collection are common to the ones that
are identified through secondary data collection (literature review), hence confirming the significance
of CSFs identified. However, there are some CSFs that were only identified through primary data
collection and were not found in the literature (presented in Table 2). These CSFs that are identified
only through interviews and survey questionnaires are a value-add provided by this paper as they will
form basis for future research in the area of eLearning adoption.
Findings from primary data and secondary data are shown in Table 1, which presents a list of CSFs
for eLearning adoption, elicited from the existing literature as well as interview and questionnaire
conducted in KSA. The CSFs are listed in four categorisations: Individual; Social; Economic; and
Governmental or Organisational. The individual aspect encompasses both learner and instructor.
These four categorisations help in understanding the different aspects of eLearning adoption
From secondary data 39 CSFs were identified; from primary data 46 CSFs were identified. Most of
the CSFs identified are common in both sources; 25% identified through primary data only; and 12%
identified through secondary data only (presented in Table 3). Finally, a total of 52 CSFs split into four
categories presented in the table 1.
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