Students’ experience of e-learning at a rural- university in South Africa

Abstract

The study investigated whether e-Learning can be a powerful tool to educate students from rural University in South Africa. The research problems addressed in this study are articulated in the form of the following research questions: How do students experience e-learning? To what extent do students find the e-Learning programme successful? The study adopted a non-experimental research design. A purposive sample of 154 Faculty of Education students who had done a computer literacy module was chosen as sample. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire which comprised of closed- questions. Quantitative methods of data analysis were used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that there are insufficient computers for the purposes of teaching and learning, which in turn creates challenges for students and lecturers as it hampers the effective of implementing e-learning. The study recommends that first year students must be provided with basic computer skills during the orientation process and academic staff also needs to be capacitated in e-learning (Moodle) as a mode of teaching and learning.

Keywords: E-learning, virtual learning, virtual classroom, rural institutions