The Impact of E-learning on Academic Performance
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
The general objective of this study was to establish the impact of e-learning on academic performance
Specific Objectives of the Study
- To establish the role prior computer skills play academic performance.
- To determine the impact of socio-demographic characteristics on academic achievement.
- To establish the impact of number of hours spent online/offline (Time management) on academic achievement.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
E-learning (EL) is the use of Information and Communication Technology e.g. Internet, Computer, Mobile phone, Learning Management System (LMS), Televisions, Radios and others to enhance teaching and learning activities. E-learning is a unifying term used to describe the fields of online learning, web-based training and technology delivered instructions (Oye , Salleh, & Iahad, 2010). EL has become an increasingly popular learning approach in higher educational institutions due to vast growth of internet technology. Nowadays E-learning has a competitive advantage and many universities have implemented it and this has impacts on students’ performance or GPA. However, still there are other universities and academic institutions that use very low interactive E-learning which is not enough to contribute to the performance of the students. In contrary to that, other higher educational institutions use highly interactive E-learning which directly improves students’ performance in general (Rodgers, 2008). Today technology is a tool used to remove geographical barriers and facilitates everybody to learn anytime and anywhere without the presence of the lecturer. The main purpose of E-Learning is to increase accessibility of education and reducing costs and time as well as improving students’ academic performance. This approach of learning facilitates different students at different continents to attend the same classes almost at the same time. Nowadays, technology is becoming the medium for teaching and learning without being at university campuses. This technology enabled instructional method is aimed to improve quality of education and student academic performance. It has been found that students in higher educational institutions that engaged in E-Learning, generally performed better than those in face-to-face courses. (Holley, 2002) found that students who participate in online/ E-Learning achieve better grades than students who studied traditional approach. As result of this finding E- learning is growing very fast and become popular and that is why many higher educational institutions are adopting to virtual learning system. ELearning is widely used in many universities in the world today. In some universities, their E-learning does not add any value to the teaching and learning activities of the University and perhaps they do not investigate the impact of E-learning on student academic performance. Much research has not been done on the relationship of E-learning use and student academic performance. UTM has an E-learning site designed for teaching and learning using module software package, but is not fully utilized by both students and lecturers. The students in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) that use Elearning may perform better than those who do not use it. This study will reveal the possible contributions of E-learning to students’ academic performance. This study is very important and will find out the relationship of E-Learning use and students’ academic performance in UTM. All standard paper components have been specified for three reasons:
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CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to examine the impact of e-learning on academic performance.
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment, the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected from the respondents were analyzed in tabular form with simple percentage for easy understanding.
A total of 133(one hundred and thirty three) questionnaires were distributed and 133 questionnaires were returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the impact of e-learning on academic performance.
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of e-learning on academic performance.
Summary
The current study was carried out to show the impacts of e-learning in academic performance through improved learning process, motivation for academic studies, self- development outcome and its effects on academic performance. From the result of the study it is clear that e-learning facilitated studies significantly improve academic performance, learning process and self- development. It is also observed that there is more likelihood that majority of the students in secondary schools and tertiary institutions have not fully utilized the self-development aspect of e-learning to significantly improve their learning process. Instead, most of the students would rather prefer to be engrossed in e-entertainment and social network activities that have negative influence on their learning process and outcomes. E-learning is an effective means of self-development and it also facilitates academic performance in secondary schools. It will also help students to develop potentials for rigorous academic studies and research purposes which are basically needed skills for successful academic pursuits.
Conclusion
The study reveals that the introduction of the online learning platform of the entry-level module did not impact on the performance of the students overall. Based on the fact that the repeating students could have possibly had printed lecture material and handouts from the previous year, the study further fails to provide evidence that online learning impacted on the students’ performance. However, the introduction of the online learning platform improved the mark dispersion and as such lowered the standard deviation of marks in the year the online learning platform was introduced. Consequently, the mean and median marks improved after the adoption of the online learning platform. The study further reveals that the African group of students was the only racial group adversely affected by the introduction of the online learning platform, suggesting that they could have been underprepared in the use of online resources.
Recommendations
This current study would therefore, recommends that secondary schools management should make a consorted effort to provide e-learning environments that would enhance student performances in schools and also facilitate their self- development efforts. Assignment and research works that are meant to encourage students to the most effective use of the elearning facilities provided by the school should frequently be given to the students as this will help to significantly improve their self–independence and development in their respective academic endeavors.
Reference
- Balaji, M., & Chakrabarti, D. (2010). Student interactions in online discussion forum: Empirical research from ‘media richness theory’perspective. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 9(1), 1-22.
- Barkley, E., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2005). Collaborative Learning Techniques: A handbook for college faculty. United States of America: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Bhuasiri, W., Xaymoungkhoun, O., Zo, H., Rho, J. J., & Ciganek, A. P. (2012). Critical success factors for e-learning in developing countries: A comparative analysis between ICT experts and faculty. Computers & Education, 58(2), 843-855.
- Bolliger, D. U., & Wasilik, O. (2009). Factors influencing faculty satisfaction with online teaching and learning in higher education. Distance Education, 30(1), 103-116.
- Brock, T. (2010). Young adults and higher education: Barriers and breakthroughs to success. The Future of Children, 20(1), 109-132.
- Chen, K.-C., & Jang, S.-J. (2010). Motivation in online learning: Testing a model of self-determination theory. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(4), 741- 752.