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Satisfaction of Technology, Online Learning, and Intent to Persist in Older Adult Learners

<p> The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between six factors of student satisfaction and intent to continue with online education in a sample of older adult learners. Participants were chosen using a stratified random sampling of students enrolled at Mercer University and South University online programs to ensure a proportional mix of qualifying learners. The randomly selected qualifying online students received an email inviting them to participate in the study. An online survey adapted from the technology acceptance model (TAM), the Student e-learning Satisfaction Instrument (SESI), along with demographic questions were used to gather the data. The data were analyzed using logistic regression. This study involved the investigation of the relationships between the perceived satisfaction of older adults with online technologies in an educational setting, as measured by the SESI instrument with the criterion variable of intent to continue online learning. Overall, mean scores for the six predictor variables were somewhat stable across the variables, ranging from the lowest for Personalization (<i>M</i>=3.65, <i>SD</i>=0.61) to the highest for Learner Interface (<i>M</i>=3.81, <i>SD</i>=0.77). Results of binomial logistic regression analysis indicated that the variable of e-learning satisfaction is a statistically significant predictor of the odds that older adult learners intend to continue online learning (&beta;=1.205, <i> p</i>=0.006). None of the perceived satisfaction scores averaged below 3, indicating that a majority of the participants affirmed that they were satisfied with technology. The practical recommendations suggest that to ensure the success of older adult learners in the online environment, learners must be able to adopt new techniques for effective teaching and learning in an online environment. The online teaching instructor should also design the programs based on the needs of the leaners. Future research recommendations include a qualitative analysis of the research problem could produce results that substantiate the findings of the current study.</p>

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3706773
Date22 August 2015
CreatorsDhungana, Hari P.
PublisherNorthcentral University
Source SetsProQuest.com
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typethesis

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