Building student trust in online learning environments

Abstract

As online learning continues to gain widespread attention and thrive as a legitimate alternative to classroom instruction, educational institutions and online instructors face the challenge of building and sustaining student trust in online learning environments. The present study represents an attempt to address the challenge by identifying the social and technical factors that can likely induce or influence students’ perception about the trustworthiness of an online course and integrating the factors into a socio-technical framework that can be empirically validated. The methodology used and the data obtained from a university-wide survey conducted in an American university are reported in this article. Feedback from students with disabilities was further investigated, and the result has important implications for our understanding of disabled students’ acceptance for online learning.

Keywords:

• trust
• student perception
• e-learning
• distance education
• disability
• accessibility

Acknowledgments

Funding for this research was provided by the Office of Distance Education, George Mason University.

Notes

1. A briefer version of the framework was presented at the 15th Annual ATINER International Conference on Education, 2013, and appeared within the proceedings.