Students' continuance intention to use MOOCs: empirical evidence from India

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in understanding the Massive open online courses (MOOCs) due to its gaining popularity. Even though the number of online platforms and programs has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is still a high rate of dropout and non-completion. In this work, the expectation-confirmation model is combined with MOOC features such as perceived openness, perceived reputation, and other factors i.e., perceived enjoyment, and perceived computer self-efficacy to investigate the learner's continued intention to use MOOC. A survey was undertaken and the data was collected from 383 students pursuing their degrees (undergraduate and post-graduate) in Karnataka state, India. The collected data were analyzed with structural equation modelling in Smart PLS 3. The study confirms a significant influence of confirmation and perceived usefulness on satisfaction, and direct significant influence of perceived computer self-efficacy, satisfaction, and perceived usefulness on continuance intention. Also, the results demonstrated the significant influence of confirmation on perceived enjoyment and usefulness and the effect of computer self-efficacy on usefulness. The findings in this study indicate that the MOOC platforms should focus on confirming learner expectations and the usefulness of courses to ensure student satisfaction and continuance of courses.

Keywords: Computer self-efficacy; Confirmation; Enjoyment; MOOCs; Openness; Perceived usefulness; Reputation; Satisfaction.

Fig. 1

Conceptual Model

Fig. 2

Results of the structural model. The results support 8 out of 11 hypotheses, the 3 hypotheses which are not supported are shown by dashed line indicating insignificant results (perceived enjoyment, perceived openness and perceived reputation on satisfaction)