E-Learning in India: Segmenting Students of a Business School based on their Perception

E-learning has become an important tool to impart education. This study examines the awareness and perception of e-learning among Indian students enrolled for a business management course at a premier business school. It is generally perceived that since Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is universally acknowledged for its quality of education, the awareness and perception about e-learning would be uniform. This could be attributed to factors like a sound educational background and the exposure to information technology. This study attempts to segment the sample based on the student perception towards e-learning. The results show that the level of awareness and the degree of familiarity with e-learning technologies are high. Three student clusters were found, which split the students into those with ‘high motivational & learning propensity’, ‘neutral motivational & learning propensity’ and ‘low motivational & learning propensity.’ These three clusters were labeled as ‘Enthusiastic,’ ‘Pragmatist,’ and ‘Unenthusiastic.’ Further, it was found that the age of students varied significantly within these three clusters. DOI: 10.4018/javet.2012100101 2 International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology, 3(4), 1-13, October-December 2012 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. In India, and other developing countries, e-learning is slowly becoming a popular form of educational medium for delivering education in both retail and enterprise market segments. While globally, a number of big technology players like IBM, Cisco, Oracle and Sun Microsystems have played an important role in popularizing and thereby fueling the growth of the online education market, in India the same role has been played by NIIT Limited. NIIT Limited is one of the popular service providers delivering education and training via the Web. Similarly, a number of educational institutes like Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Symbiosis Institute for Distance Learning etc. have been using this medium to impart education in India. This growth and acceptance of e-learning as a medium of instruction can also be attributed to easy access to supply side factors. The last few years have witnessed a tremendous competition between the players selling IT infrastructure such as hardware, software and Internet bandwidth which has resulted in a steep fall in the price of these products, making them affordable. More recently, with the mobile revolution and telephony penetrating even the smallest towns of the country, India is poised to reap big dividends through exploitation of e-learning technologies for education and training.