Investigating the adoption of MOOCs: A technology–user–environment perspective

Abstract

In spite of the potentials promised by MOOCs (massive open online courses), the adoption rate of MOOCs is still low, especially in developing countries. Research on the adoption of MOOCs in developing countries is also limited. To fill this research gap, this research aims to study the adoption of MOOCs by extending current research on innovation and technology adoption in order to promote the diffusion of MOOCs in developing countries. Here, a conceptual framework, technology–user–environment was proposed to identify influential drivers and barriers of MOOC adoption. Eight hundred and twenty‐seven individuals in a developing country, were invited to participate in a questionnaire survey. Data were analysed by hierarchical regression, and the results show that for the (a) technological characteristics, perceived usefulness has the most significant influence, followed by lack of accessibility and performance‐to‐cost value; for the (b)user factors, self‐regulation was the most significant predictor of MOOC adoption, and female learners showed higher willingness to adopt MOOCs; and for the (c) social environmental factors, tradition and social norms and lack of information about MOOCs were negatively associated with adoption of MOOCs. Implications and suggestions are discussed at the end of this paper.

An application of AHP for students’ perspectives on adopting MOOCs

“…Based on the perceptions of Chinese learners, their results indicated that fulfillment of basic psychological needs namely, relatedness, competence and autonomy, develop intrinsic motivation in learners which in turn increases their psychological engagement in MOOCs. Recently Ma and Lee (2019) presented a model based on technology-user-environment (TUE) framework to investigate the Chinese learners' adoption behavior of MOOCs. They considered perceived usefulness, performance-to-cost value, interactivity, and accessibility under the technology factors; self regulation, experience, and gender, under the user factors; and learning tradition, peers' impact, instruction and publicity, as the social environmental factors within the TUE framework.…”

“…Specifically, they highlighted that perceived usefulness and performance-to-cost value play a significant role in motivating the students to adopt MOOCs. On the other hand, accessibility barriers such as network accessibility and instruction language barrier, refrain learners from adopting MOOCs (Ma & Lee, 2019).…”

“…Researchers have argued that if the learners perceive MOOCs to be useful in terms of enhancing their knowledge, then they are more likely to adopt MOOCs (Ma & Lee, 2019;Wu & Chen, 2017). Especially in developing countries, where access to good quality learning material is limited, students are inclined towards MOOCs because of their high-quality content in various cutting edge areas (Zhou, 2016).…”

“…Learners especially in developing countries may evaluate the tradeoff between the expenses and value received while learning through MOOCs (Ma & Lee, 2019;Chou, 2016). Though in most of the MOOCs, learning is free but for earning the certificate of completion, certain fee is charged.…”

“…Considering the growing potential of MOOCs in developing countries, it is imperative to find out the key factors which students may consider while deciding to choose MOOCs. Though few studies in the past have focused on adoption of MOOCs in developing countries like China (Ma & Lee, 2019), Pakistan (Khan et al, 2018) and Jordan (Abu-Shanab & Musleh, 2018), however studies considering the Indian context are lacking. Hence the present study attempts to find the relative importance of factors that influence Indian students' decisions to learn through MOOCs.…”