Factors Affecting Students’ Adoption of E-Learning Systems During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Abstract

The provision and usage of online and e-learning systems are becoming the main challenge for many universities during COVID-19 pandemic. E-learning system such as Moodle has several fantastic features that would be valuable for use during this COVID-19 pandemic. However, the successful usage of the e-learning system relies on understanding the adoption factors. There is a lack of agreement about the critical factors that shape the successful usage of e-learning systems during the COVID-19 pandemic; hence, a clear gap has been identified in the knowledge of the critical factors of e-learning usage during this pandemic. Therefore, an extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was developed to investigate the underlying factors that influence Students’ decisions to use an e-learning system. The TAM was populated using data gathered from a survey of 389 undergraduate Students’ who were using the based-Moodle e-learning system at Alazhar University. The model was estimated using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). A path model was developed to analyze the relationships between the factors to explain students’ adoption of the e-learning system. The findings indicated that Computer Anxiety, Course Content, Hedonic Motivation, Perceived Environment, Subjective Norm, and Technical Support effect significantly on both ease of use and usefulness. Subjective Norm effect significantly on intention to use. Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness effect significantly on intention to use.