Habibah Ab. Jalil

The contribution of institutional factors to course satisfaction with perceived learning as a mediator among student in Malaysian research universities

Distance learning in Malaysia has seen phenomenal growth especially in higher education where there are numerous universities offering online courses that have specifically provided access to students who were challenged by space and time constraints. Regardless of the dramatic increase of online courses and student enrollment, there are many indications that online courses are unsuccessful at meeting students’ needs and students are dissatisfied with their online course experiences, which brings about a serious concern regarding the dropout rates of online courses. For solving this issue, it is crucial that researchers identify and study the factors that lead to student satisfaction with online courses because course satisfaction is considered to be the largest determinant in reducing dropout in distance learning environment. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the contribution of institutional factors in terms of support including technical support, administrative support, and university support toward course satisfaction among 367 undergraduate distance students in Malaysian research universities. The result of the study revealed that institutional factors were a significantly positive, and strong factor associated with course satisfaction. Further, both direct and indirect effects of institutional factors on course satisfaction were significant, which means the effect of this variable on course satisfaction is partially mediated by perceived learning.

Predictors of academic achievement in online peer learning among undergraduate students in a Malaysian public university

An online peer learning through social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram has been networking interrelated undergraduates as social groups in higher learning institutions. In that respect, it has become an emerging phenomenon in the academia. Yet, not much is known about the effect of social media on the undergraduates? academic achievement. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to identify the relationship of students’ peer engagement, academic self-efficacy, social influence, peer feedback and collaboration with students’ academic achievement while practising online peer learning via social media and at the same time to predict the factors that influencing students’ academic achievement among undergraduate students in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). The study was based on the quantitative method in nature with a correlational design using a set of the questionnaire as instrument adapted from previous studies and validated by a panel of experts. The sampling technique is stratified. A total of 376 responses were collected. The finding of regression analysis indicated that five of the variables have a significant effect while the only peer feedback has an insignificant effect. The most important factor is social influence, followed by collaboration, performance expectancy, peer engagement and academic self-efficacy. The model explained 38.9% of the variation in the academic achievement of undergraduate students at UPM. As a result, this study confirms that collaboration between peer in an online environment is valid and able to predict the academic achievement.

MOOC at Universiti Sains Malaysia: Factors Impacting the Teaching and Learning Outcomes of TITAS Course

A study has been conducted to investigate the factors that impacted the outcomes of teaching and learning of Tamadun Islam dan Tamadun Asia (TITAS) course among first year undergraduate students of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). This is part of a larger study that looks at the impact of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) initiative of Ministry of Education Malaysia of four pilot courses offered during the first semester of 2014/2015 academic session. A total of 158 students enrolled in TITAS course responded to the 37 items-questionnaire. The respondents consist of male (15.1 %) and female (84.8 %) and majority of them (86.7 %) are competent in ICT. A factorial analysis was conducted to give patterns and structures to the data and provide a meaningful interpretation to the variables influencing the outcomes of the teaching and learning. The analysis revealed three components that explained a total of 56.80 % of the variance. The first factor is the design of the learning activities (39.80 % of the variance) followed by the access to the learning materials (11.78 % of the variance) and the third factor can be attributed to curriculum compliance of learning course (5.21 % of the variance). The significant of the study is that it revealed of the importance of the design of learning activities for the successful implementation and delivery of MOOC. Equally important is the seamless access to the learning materials. Detailed discussion on these two factors will be put forward and as well as the appropriate interventions within the whole MOOC implementation framework.