Examining factors influencing e-learning engagement among university students during covid-19 pandemic: a mediating role of “learning persistence”

Abstract

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 made universities switch rapidly to e-learning, which enabled continuous access to education. Thus, the evaluation of e-learning engagement is essential to ensure students are engaged in their studies just as it is in the conventional face-to-face classroom. The students are totally in control of their participation in the e-learning platform, and little is known about what instructors can do to facilitate their engagement in the platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, the extant literature has reported that one of the challenges posed by e-learning is that many university students engage in off-task behaviors during lectures. Therefore, a systematic model for assessing university students’ e-learning engagement, learning persistence, and academic benefits was developed based on a thorough literature review. Data was collected from 274 students using e-learning platforms, and this study adopted the quantitative method of Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling to validate the model empirically. A total of nine first-order constructs were used to measure e-learning engagement. They all explained 75% of the variance of e-learning engagement, while 42% and 66% explained the variance of learning persistence and academic benefits, respectively. All the hypotheses tested were positive, except for the relationship between learning persistence and academic benefits.

KEYWORDS:

• E-learning engagement
• learning persistence
• academic benefits
• Computer Efficacy
• academic self-efficacy

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ibrahim Adeshola

Ibrahim Adeshola is a senior instructor at the School of Computing and Technology, Eastern Mediterranean University, Northern Cyprus. His research area includes computer programming, cloud computing, digital forensics, e-learning, e-government, e-commerce, knowledge management and management information system.

Mary Agoyi

Mary Agoyi received the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering. She is currently an Assistant Professor with Cyprus International University. Her research interests include acceptance model, networking, information security, and image watermarking.