Card sorting assessing user attitude in E-learning

Abstract

Various undergraduate and post graduate educational bodies, now a day, employ blended learning systems to complement the face to face communication between educator and learner. While E-learning tools in general have been found to improve access to resources, these tools need to be reliable and usable; the ease of use of E-learning would have a meaningful impact on the learning experience.[1] This paper investigates learners' perception of quality and willingness to use of E-learning environments. It also explores the attitude of users from two different cultural groups towards a number of E-learning sites. The paper aims to reveal some of the perception of quality for these groups of users in interacting with learning virtual communities. In September/ October 2013, series of card sorting sessions were conducted with number of learners enrolled in a joint venture European-Arab Master Program. In the individual sessions, each participant was asked to look at card of selected E-Learning sites, and to choose a single criterion by which the E-learning main pages could be differentiated from one another. Cards were then sorted based on different categories under each criterion. Participants repeated sorting the cards according to criteria and categories they generated. A second round of sorting sessions were conducted by the same participants, where they sorted the same cards according to the Willingness to Use criterion, and provided a reason for the sorting decisions made. The analysis of the card sorting sessions reveals some interesting findings concerning interface elements which seem to be salient for users in E-learning environment, such as: Interface Comprehensibility and Obviousness, Content Usefulness, and Site Affiliation and Reputation. Some differences in quality perception were also found between the two cultural groups. This paper makes a contribution to universal access in HCI by describing the quality perception, preferences, and general attitude for different group of users in the context of E-learning environment. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.