Some institutions of higher education in Kenya have adopted e‑Learning with the aim of coping with the increased demand for university education and to widen access to university training and education. Though there are advantages that accrue from adopting e‑Learning; its implementation and provision has not been smooth sailing. It has had to contend with certain national, organisational, technical and social challenges that undermine its successful implementation. This paper therefore aims to present a literature review of the challenges faced in the implementation and provision of e‑Learning in universities in Kenya. The scoping review method was used to identify and analyze the literature of the e‑Learning challenges. Some of the challenges revealed include: lack of adequate e‑Learning policies, inadequate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, the ever evolving technologies, lack of technical and pedagogical competencies and training for e‑tutors and e‑learners, lack of an e‑Learning theory to underpin the e‑Learning practice, budgetary constraints and sustainability issues, negative perceptions towards e‑Learning, quality issues, domination of e‑Learning aims by technology and market forces and lack of collaboration among the e‑Learning participants. These challenges need to be addressed to minimise their impact on implementation and delivery of e‑Learning initiatives in institutions of higher education in Kenya. This analysis of the e‑Learning challenges forms the basis for the ongoing research that seeks to explore and establish possible strategies to address some of these challenges.

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Some universities in Kenya have taken up e-learning to flexibly deliver learning and bridge the educational access gap. Despite the benefits that e-learning offers to the e-learners, there are challenges that they must cope with. The aim of this paper is to present the challenges that emerged from a research that was undertaken in two Institutions of Higher Learning (IHLs). It also presents the coping strategies that e-learners used to overcome the challenges. The research used the constructivist version of Grounded Theory (GT) methodology. It used in-depth interviews and participant observations to gather data from the e-learners, e-tutors, e-learning managers and e-learning platforms. Therefore, the research yielded qualitative data which was analyzed using Atlas.ti software. Data was analyzed thematically to establish the patterns of challenges and the equivalent coping strategies. The results are presented using the Gioia technique and the discussion used the vignettes technique from participants in order to preserve their voice. The challenges that emerged relate to: e-content, coursework, internet access, e-learning technology, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills and training, interaction and collaboration, personal issues, teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses and the tutorials. Recommendations on how to tackle these challenges have also been suggested. An understanding of these challenges is important to the e-learning players so that they can adopt interventions to mitigate them and hence improve interaction and collaboration. The results presented in this paper are part of the larger research whose main objective was to develop an e-learning theory for interaction and collaboration.

Grounded Theory (GT) is becoming an increasingly prevalent research methodology in many fields. Although researchers use it in qualitative and quantitative studies, it is more popular with qualitative studies, as evidenced by the citations from previous research. This paper aims to document and present how we used GT in our qualitative research to construct an e-learning theory for interaction and collaboration. It also includes the justification of GT. We adopted and adapted the constructivist GT (CGT). Therefore, this paper discusses the CGT methodology, its philosophical, ontological and epistemological perspectives. It also includes the research design that captures how we sampled the participants, collected, analyzed and interpreted the data, and how we documented the research findings in the context of CGT. It also includes the justification of the decisions we made and the extent to which they align with CGT. Using CGT, we listened to, observed and captured e-learners’ and e-tutors’ stories and experiences which yielded rich and insightful data that informed the development of the e-learning theory for interaction and collaboration. We also present the challenges we experienced when using CGT and the strategies we used to overcome them. Finally, we have included the methodological insights we drew from using CGT in our research. This paper has presented the CGT design strategy; thus, it will be helpful, especially to novice and future researchers aspiring to use the methodology to conduct their research.