Motivation to Learn Online: The Case For Social Support

Abstract

This study discusses the motivation of students to learn online in public universities in Malaysia. Internet access has made online learning possible and enhanced the learning process from the physical classroom extended to the virtual classroom. Moreover, integrating Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) is extremely beneficial to both teachers and students because it can support the teaching and learning process in the virtual classroom. With the acceleration of technology in education, students and teachers must be highly motivated to grasp the sufficient skills to use technology to convey knowledge. Hence, this quantitative survey is conducted to examine the influence of social support, expectancy, and value in raising the motivation to learn online among students. The second objective is to investigate the relationship between the said variables. The instrument's questions were adopted from a previous study conducted by Fowler (2018) and a total of 102 responses from students of public higher education were collected. There are four sections with related questions to measure the three factors under study. In general, the result revealed that social support, expectancy, and value do influence the motivation to learn online and the existence of a positive relationship between the variables also observed. Therefore, this research concludes, to be motivated to learn online, one must have social support, expectancy, and value.