The relationship between perceived usability, personality traits and learning gain in an e-learning context

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to determine the impact of perceived usability and students' personality traits on their learning gain in an e-learning context at the university level.Design/methodology/approachThe factors examined are related to individual characteristics such as students' personality traits, as well as to perceptual characteristics such as the perceived usability of the platform used. A total of 110 undergraduate students participated in the study. A one-group pretest-posttest research design was adopted. Big 5 personality test, System Usability Scale (SUS) and a general knowledge assessment questionnaire were used.FindingsPerceived usability of Zoom platform is statistically significantly correlated with students' learning gain (r = 0.294, p = 0.002, s). Concerning learning effectiveness in the current e-learning scenario, students' final performance was found to be statistically significantly higher than the initial (p = 0.000, s). A hierarchical regression analysis (R2 = 0.146) unveiled that Zoom's perceived usability and personality traits are significant predictors for learning gain (p = 0.011, s).Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this research provide important implications regarding the design of lessons in an e-learning context.Social implicationsA substantial fraction of the educational process is going online, especially in higher education. Thus, a thorough understanding of the factors which influence learning gain in an e-learning context is of significance.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this study is that it quantifies the variance of the learning gain explained by two factors, namely, SUS and personality.

Academic online learning experience during COVID-19 - a systematic literature review based on personality traits

“…Thus, all students come from various departments such as management, law, languages, biology, social sciences, economics, and information science. The number of the sample varies among the research analyzed, as the participant number ranges from 110 (Vlachogianni and Tselios, 2022) to 1,152 students (Besser et al, 2020). The gender distribution of the sample varies from case to case.…”

“…In Besser et al's (2020) study, it was demonstrated that students who reported higher levels of adaptability, also had higher levels of agreeableness. According to Vlachogianni and Tselios (2022), who studied the usability and students' personality traits on their learning gains in an e-learning context, agreeableness was the only personality trait that had a statistically significant impact on learning gain.…”

“…The findings of openness need to be highlighted since it would be reasonable to presume that openness to new experiences would result in a greater tolerance for uncertainty, which may lead to more favorable reactions to synchronous online learning (Besser et al, 2020). The pattern of openness to new experiences results, which showed a non-significant association with learning gain and achievement in some cases (Rivers, 2021;Vlachogianni and Tselios, 2022), or a weak influence on learning variables (Besser et al, 2020), reflects the complexities of openness and the dependence on how openness is measured as well as the outcome that is examined. However, among the five traits, only openness to experience was related to intrinsic motivation as revealed in Audet et al (2021).…”

Online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic: How university students’ perceptions, engagement, and performance are related to their personal characteristics

“…By contrast, previous work found positive relations between agreeableness and online learning experiences via adaptability to the Covid-19 pandemic (Besser et al, 2022 ) as well as students’ engagement in online courses, their perceived value of online learning for their career, and their overall evaluation of online courses (Keller & Karau, 2013 ). Noteworthy, at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, agreeableness had the strongest association of all the Big Five with online learning outcomes in a multiple regression model (Yu, 2021 ), and was found to play a significant role in online course performance based on path analysis and hierarchical regression (Rivers, 2021 ; Vlachogianni & Tselios, 2022 ). Explanations for these differences from our results include that our multiple regression model was more complex in terms of significantly more variables, and that the importance of agreeableness for online learning decreased over the course of the pandemic.…”

“…Third, agreeableness was found to be positively related to students’ academic success in online learning in early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic (Rivers, 2021 ; Vlachogianni & Tselios, 2022 ; Yu, 2021 ). Agreeable students are polite and willing to compromise and cooperate, and they were found to see more value in online learning for their career (Keller & Karau, 2013 ).…”