An Analysis of Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes to Online Learning Use in Higher Education in Jamaica: An Extension of TAM [Research in progress]

The research presents preliminary work on the perception of students to the use of an e-learning system in a top Jamaican University. E-learning, defined as the act, process or experience of gaining knowledge or skill through the delivery of lessons and instructions via the Internet, has grown as key method in education management over the last couple of decades. Studies have shown that significant investments in this technology are made by Universities yet the full benefits expected have not been realized due to issues and challenges experienced by both learners and instructors in adopting and effectively using elearning. Our investigation revealed that while this University has not officially launched its e-learning systems it has been available for over five years where instructors across faculties have implemented their classroom with varying results. The study extend the original TAM model to include several other constructs such as faculty encouragement, university climate and access to computers as basis to understand perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of the university’s current e-learning system. The study offers both research and practical significance as it is argued that within the developing contexts these variables are importance in understanding as institutions make the transitions to different modes of e-learning. Additionally, while there is growing literature on e-learning, little or no research is done within the context of the English-speaking Caribbean and it is imperative that technology adoption studies are specifically designed to fit the unique contextual settings, such as Jamaica.