Students’ satisfaction and continued intention toward e-learning: a theory-based study

ABSTRACT

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has forced the urgent lockdown of schools and colleges worldwide. To ensure the continuity of education a shift from traditional teaching to e-learning was required. This study aims to identify factors that affect students’ satisfaction and continued intention towards e-learning. A questionnaire was distributed to medical and dental students (second to sixth year) from different universities in Saudi Arabia. The study synthesizes the expectation-confirmation theory (ECT) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to predict students’ satisfaction and intention to continue using e-learning using a validated self-administered questionnaire. We used the structural equation model to analyze the results and assess the study’s hypotheses. A total of 870 completed questionnaires were received (67% response rate). The results showed that students were at a moderate level of satisfaction (median = 3.5). According to the ECT, both perceived usefulness and confirmation significantly influenced students’ satisfaction (β = −.69 and β = .82, respectively). Satisfaction was the strongest predictor of students’ continued intention (β = 1.95). Among the TPB constructs, perceived behavioral control (β = .51), attitudes (β = .39), and subjective norms (β = .36) had a significant positive influence on their intention to use e-learning. The results suggest efforts to increase students’ satisfaction and intention with e-learning should be directed to adopting easy and useful e-learning platforms. In addition, training and motivating students to continue e-learning and increasing their confidence to ensure the effective and efficient use of such teaching modalities.

KEYWORDS:

• Continuous intention
• e-learning
• expectation-confirmation theory
• satisfaction
• theory of planned behavior

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank class leaders who helped in distributing the questionnaire. Moreover, the authors wish to thank the students who participated in this study.

Availability of data and materials

All data are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The Institutional Review Board at Faculty of Dentistry, Umm Al-Qura University reviewed the study protocol and deemed the study exempt. All respondents agreed and consented to participate.

Authors’ contributions

MR, FA, SA, FW, IA, AA and NA contributed to the study conception, design and data collection. MR analyzed the data. MR and FA drafted the manuscript. SA, FW, IA, AA and NA critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

There are no funding sources to declare.