Critical success factors of e-learning systems

What is it about?

A stream of research identifying predictors of e-learning success over the past decade suggests that there are several critical success factors (CSFs) that must be managed effectively to fully realize promise for e-learning. Grounded in constructivist learning theories, we advance previous work on CSFs in university online education. Findings indicated that instructor-student dialogue, student-student dialogue, instructor, and course design significantly affected students’ satisfaction and learning outcomes. Finally, intrinsic student motivation affected learning outcomes but not user satisfaction. The findings suggest that course design, instructor, and dialogue were the strongest predictors of user satisfaction and learning outcomes.

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Photo by Stefan Vladimirov on Unsplash

Photo by Stefan Vladimirov on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our study makes a number of significant contributions to literature on the effectiveness of e-learning systems. First, we extracted several pivotal constructs to build our research model empirically to be tested: self-regulated learning, motivation, instructor, dialogue, and course design, based on the review of the constructivist learning models (Table 1). Second, the study examined the strength and importance of a set of pivotal factors of e-learning success in terms of perceived learning outcomes and students’ satisfaction – roles of the instructor (as active facilitator, intellectual stimulator, care-taker, and feedback provider), course design, and dialogue.

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