Level of Acceptance in Applying E-Learning for Courses

Abstract


This research is an attempt to find the acceptance level of Applying E-Learning for MBA Courses in India. Today is a world of Information and knowledge. Many changes have occurred in this world in the field of E-learning Technical developments in ICT (information and communications technology) are influencing organizational structures, processes and business model in manners not seen before. Its impact in education and training is visible in the form of anytime – anywhere learning and educational programs addressing students in territories beyond their traditional zone. MBA schools, specially the top notch appear to be cautious and slow in embracing the new technology. As per the well-known management guru, Michael E Porter businesses have no choice in adoption of internet technologies. Only question before them is how to deploy it. Schools need to figure out how to blend new technologies in their residential MBA programs. Proper design has potential to prepare students better for modern organizations. Through this study it has been tried to find out the level of acceptance among students for applying e-learning in MBA courses.




Introduction


Today world is known as technological era, where e-Learning is an emerging technique with great potential. The main reasons for the need for e-Learning are: rapid changes in technology; high demand for skilled practitioners and the dearth of experts in several fields of research and knowledge. The availability, scalability, and inter-operability of information technologies make e-Learning a viable alternative to traditional teaching methodologies.
The tremendous growth of the economy in the recent past has also helped in the growth of online education in India. There is a possibility to increase the people will like the course and will be interested in such courses. E-learning in India is especially popular with the young professionals who have joined the work force quite early but still would like to continue their education that may help them move up their career ladder quickly and safely. They find online education in India very convenient, as the nature of the course work does not require them to attend regular classes. Lots of reputed institutes like Indian Institute of Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade e.t.c are today offering e-learning courses. Thus e-learning in India makes it possible for the learners to pursue their education from reputed institutes without much hassle.
The demand of e-learning is large and is predicted to grow as the use of networked multimedia software’s learning management systems fulfils many corporate requirements for work based training which can be delivered anywhere and at any time [6–8]. Many organizations are making use of third party vendors to provide in-house training using customized Learning materials often supported by access to large databases of electronic resources and delivery support controlled and monitored using learning management software.
My reason of doing this research in India is that e-learning has shown success in many parts of the country and in many areas with the growth chart is going up. India is a vast county and the education system is not as well worse as it is in US, UK, Canada and many more are there. E-learning has a potential in India and e-learning in many of the MBA courses has not been implemented. And the learning is provided by top notch colleges and is basically for correspondence courses. I want to do a research that if the e-learning is applied in full time colleges what will be the findings.
In this research Business course has been used as MBA Course.
Thus, this research aimed to survey students’ level of acceptance regarding applying e-learning for MBA courses.

METHODOLOGY


I. The Design of the Research:
This research adopted a questionnaire survey in three stages:

1. Stage One:
Based on the purpose of the research, literature was reviewed regarding the designing of the questionnaire content with a view of attaining the goal of the research. After completing the design of the questionnaire, input and opinions from professional scholars in the related field were obtained.

2. Stage Two:
In this research we have taken a sample of 107 people. The people taken into consideration were selected by ‘purposive sampling’ technique. All 107 students had taken from Engineering College. The sample consisted of both males and females. 6 respondents were taken from a school and the rest were taken from Engineering College. All the respondents were informed about the research and its objectives and then they were asked to fill the online questionnaire.

II. Research Tools:
1. The Content of the Questionnaire:
The questionnaire was designed to have two parts:
(1) Relevant Personal Information:
For this part, the content of the questionnaire sought basic information, such as the interviewee’s gender, school system, computer skills, and whether they have applied e-learning for MBA courses. This information became the foundation for the statistical analysis.

(2) Survey into the Students’ Level of Acceptance in Applying E-learning for MBA Courses:
Students’ opinions played an important role in the success in applying e-learning for MBA courses. For this part, structured questionnaire including multiple-choice questions was developed, the content of the questionnaire focused on exploring the students’ level of acceptance in applying e-learning for MBA courses. Based on the purpose of the research, the items of the questionnaire covered three dimensions i.e. Individual Perspective, Learning Effects, and Class Management. The 15 items listed (See table 1) constitute “the rating scale for the students’ level of acceptance for applying e-learning to MBA courses”. This questionnaire adopted Likert’ s five-rating-scale pattern of response, ranking responses from “strongly agree”, “agree”, “neutral”, “disagree”, “strongly disagree” and scoring the responses from 5 to 1. However, if the statement was negative, the scoring was reversed. For example, if the student marked “strongly agree”, the score would be 1. In contrast, if the student ticked off “strongly disagree”, the score was 5.

For the study, 107 copies of the formal questionnaire were distributed by me personally and all were retrieved, so the rate of retrieval for valid questionnaires reached 100%.

DISCUSSION
The respondents are taken from MIET engineering college. The respondents are taken from 2nd and 4th year batch and 6 students from 12th and questionnaire has been filled by them. The response rate was pretty good and all the questionnaire were filled without any failure. The final result came out to be positive as in India e-learning acceptance is very high and male female does not make any difference in e-learning acceptance. School system does make little effect on the acceptance level as those who had been exposed to e-learning.

Based on the research results, analysis, and discussion these are the finding:

i . The students’ level of satisfaction in applying e-learning for MBA Courses is high as a whole, so some more efforts must be applied in Applying e-learning for MBA courses.

ii. Gender, school system, and computer skills do not affect students’ level of acceptance in applying e-learning for MBA courses. The results tell that computer skill have nothing to do with students’ level of acceptance in applying e-learning for MBA courses.

iii. The results shows that those students who had the experience of e-learning shows some affect in the students’ level of acceptance in applying e-learning for MBA courses. The experience of applying e-learning greatly enhances students’ level of acceptance in reapplying e-learning for MBA courses. There is true that who has applied e-learning for MBA Courses hold a positive attitude toward the general effect of e-learning and even they some what predetermined that they will go for e-learning. So, if e-learning is applied for MBA Courses is definitely going to benefit the Courses and students.

iv. The school system give little information for those students those had some experience of e-learning for MBA courses. Although the effect is not statistically obvious, students in 2-year technical and 4-year technical colleges indeed have more opportunities in applying e-learning for MBA courses than do students in 2 year degree college(till 12th). This research suggests that if e-learning is applied to schools this will benefit the students.

Limitation
1. Convince sampling has been done because of time constraint and money constraint.
2. Pre-testing has not been done due to time constraint.