Intention and barriers to use MOOCs: An investigation among the post graduate students in India
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Intention and barriers to use MOOCs: An investigation among the post graduate students in India M. Mithun Mohan 1 & Pallavi Upadhyaya 1
& K.
Rajasekharan Pillai 1
Received: 2 March 2020 / Accepted: 1 May 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have widely been acknowledged as a unified platform to reduce the digital divide and make education accessible to all. It also enables students’ access to professors and educational contents sans spatial and institutional barriers. Despite several benefits, MOOCs’ adoption and completion rate remain unimpressive, especially among developing countries. Using Extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2), we examine the key factors that influence the behavioral intention to use MOOCs among students in an Indian private university. The data from 412 postgraduate students were analyzed using Partial Least Squares-Structured Equation Modelling. The study identifies barriers to use MOOCs, in a university that has offered free MOOCs courses and certifications to the students. The study makes several theoretical contributions and offer adequate insights for higher education institutions to administer and integrate MOOCs in their curriculum. Keywords Online learning . MOOCs . UTAUT2 . E-learning . Distance education
1 Introduction Online learning through MOOCs platforms has been considered a revolutionary development in the education system, with scalable, seamless, and equitable access to courses from universities, anywhere in the world. The ubiquitous penetration of internet and mobile communication technologies has brought about disruptive, but desirable, transformations in the higher education landscape, by making it inclusive. India, after the USA, dominates the global growth in MOOCs’ enrolments (Chauhan 2017). The Government of India (GoI) has been extensively promoting MOOCs,
* Pallavi Upadhyaya [email protected]
1
Manipal Institute of Management, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India
Education and Information Technologies
through its SWAYAM platform (GoI 2020). There is an exponential growth in the number of courses offered through MOOCs and the number of universities participating in these platforms, worldwide. As per a report by Shah (2018), over 900 universities around the world had offered 11.4 k courses on the various MOOCs platform, by the end of 2018. Several universities in India have entered into strategic partnerships with MOOCs platforms for providing content and certifications to the aspirants. Though the number of learners on the MOOCs platforms have crossed 100 million, there is a fall in the number of new learners registering in MOOCs platforms (Shah 2018). The number of user growth has not been commensurate to the growth of MOOCs platforms. Ma and Lee (2018) point out that the widespread use of MOOCs is still lagging, especially in developing countries. Alraimi et al. (2015) find that MOOCs completion rate is low, and only 10% of registered users successfully complete the cou
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