Students’ Acceptance for e-Learning and the Effects of Self-Efficacy in Malaysia

Abstract

The study investigated the e-Learning acceptance among Malaysian higher education students. There are three exogenous variables involved, namely, performance expectancy, social influence, and perceived enjoyment. A mediating effect of self-efficacy was correspondingly tested to build a different connection point on the research area. The target population of the study are active students of Malaysia higher education institutions. Data was collected using an online platform, and out of the 557 responses received , only a total of 414 were valid and subsequently used for data analysis. The results indicated that, performance expectancy, social influence, perceived enjoyment, and self-efficacy have a positive direct statistically significant relationships with e-Learning acceptance among students. Additionally, there was a partial mediating effect of self-efficacy between performance expectations and perceived enjoyment on e-Learning acceptance. Meanwhile, social influence was found to have no mediating effect, since there was no statistically positive relationship between social influence and self-efficacy. Students with a positive feeling about the usefulness of e-Learning tend to have a positive acceptance of the e-Learning method, and this, in turn, will affect their self-efficacy, thus resulting in an excellent understanding of the lessons. Lecturers and students will be benefited from this study by considering significant factors and the importance of individual self-efficacy towards achieving an excellent understanding of the lessons. Hence, it is expected that, institutions and regulatory bodies can contribute towards a more productive and acceptable learning system to improve the quality of the education to be delivered.