In today's ever-changing, knowledge-based world, it has become imminent for companies to have the ability to lead change in order to have competitive advantage, and e-Learning is now recognized as an important alternative for developing talented indiv...
In today's ever-changing, knowledge-based world, it has become imminent for companies to have the ability to lead change in order to have competitive advantage, and e-Learning is now recognized as an important alternative for developing talented individuals to lead this change. Hence, companies now make huge investments in the area of e-Learning. Learners are able to take on a more self-directing approach towards their learning through e-Learning for improving their skills and self-development. However, although e-Learning is becoming widespread among companies, research on the subject suggests not enough positive learning effect is being created. This raises the need to enhance the quality of LMS and its technical features to ensure educational results at an organizational level.
E-Learning has emerged as a factor for enhancing learning effect, and many related studies are being conducted on the subject. Nevertheless, in reality, there is a lack of research on learning as a whole that takes into account the properties of multi-dimensional learning effect. This study is to examine the overall or positive impact on learning satisfaction to find out about the variables which attribute to the change in the quality of the learning experience. The specific purpose of this research is to study the structural relationship of the learning satisfaction effect regarded by the learners. Currently, most of the e-Learning programs in companies are now being addressed under the context of education & training. In this sort of independent learning environment, without the support of details on the e-Learning contents and the ease of system features, learners will have difficulty actively participating and being engaged in their learning process. On the other hand, in a corporate e-Learning environment where accurately assessing the learner's level of accomplishment can be difficult, the satisfaction level conveys the learner's level of achievement and functions as a learning effect indicator that identifies whether the learner's objectives have been met. Therefore, the satisfaction level has been selected as a determinant for assessing learning effect.
In the development of the tool, the number of questions in the measuring tools of earlier research has been reduced to fit the corporate environment and the questions modified depending on the research subject. The tool consists of four learning comprehension questions, seven usability questions, three engagement questions, four technical feature questions, ten learner satisfaction questions, and ten questions to find out demographic characteristics. Data on 311 individuals have been gathered, the reliability of each question tested and the inter-reliability among the questions measured and studied. And as a validity analysis, the Principle Component Analysis has been conducted to analyze question elements in sets.
The results of the study conducted as above can be summarized as follows:
Firstly, upon inspecting the difference in the level of understanding depending on the format with which e-Learning contents are delivered, both the multimedia format and text format had similar mean value. This indicates that both the multimedia format and text format have the same learning objectives and composition in terms of contents. Secondly, the study on the different levels of engagement based on the format shows that, in terms of engagement, the text type has a higher level of satisfaction than multimedia. This allows learners to click on different pages and participate in various events while the learning is in progress, and it can be presumed that the interactive learning design had an impact in raising the level of engagement. Thirdly, the difference in terms of usability based on the format shows the mean value to be similar for both the multimedia format and the text format, demonstrating that there is no notable statistical difference between the two formats in their usability. Fourthly, upon inspecting the difference in the system features of both formats, the results show the text format to be higher than multimedia. With the text format, progress can be checked within the e-Learning system and learners are able to pace their own learning. Unlike the multimedia format created as an e-Learning writing tool, it does not require ActiveX to be additionally installed to enable learning, which is why system feature-wise the satisfaction level is higher. Fifthly, in terms of learner's satisfaction according to educational background and type of format, no notable difference was detected in the statistics. Sixthly, the satisfaction level based on role and type of format indicates that people working in the head office show high levels of learning satisfaction in both the multimedia format and text format. We can observe that the Head Office employees have a higher level of satisfaction because they work in a learning environment more convenient than employees working in branches when loading and downloading learning contents, etc. Lastly, in terms of satisfaction level based on grade and type of format, learners with lower grade tend to have higher satisfaction level in multimedia format, whereas the satisfaction level of grades AGM (Assistant General Manager) and above and the satisfaction level of grades SO (Senior Officer) and below show similar results in text format.
Based on the results of the research, the conclusion are as follows:
This research presents a model which takes into account the functional aspects of information system in terms of the learners' engagement and participation level, and therefore bears significance in that it confirms the theoretic aspect for diagnosing the learning effect of e-Learning education.