Understanding motivational system in open learning: Learners’ engagement with a Traditional Chinese-based open educational resource system

Abstract

Learning has embraced the “open” process in recent years, as many educational resources are made available for free online. Existing research, however, has not provided sufficient evidence to systematically improve open learning interactions and engagement in open educational resource (OER) systems. This deficiency presents two challenges to the efficacy of OER systems. First, OER users might not take full advantage of open content since their interactions and experience with open learning systems cannot be optimized. Second, this lack of interaction could discourage the overall usage of OER systems, thus impeding their sustainability. This study addressed both issues by investigating technology acceptance levels among users of an OER portal, MyOOPS, in Taiwan. The study aimed to understand how open learners might be motivated to engage with OER systems. Based on 729 valid responses, the structural equation modeling revealed a lack of learning goal structure and irrelevance of self-efficacy in participants’ motivational systems. The result prompted an urgent need to reexamine existing motivational design thinking in order to address emerging motivational challenges in open and goal-free learning environments supported by OER systems.