7. ConclusionsNot surprisingly, “co

7. Conclusions
Not surprisingly, “course quality” is the most important concern in this e-Learning environment. Course content should be carefully designed and presented sparingly. Technological design plays an important role in students’ perceived usefulness and ease of use of a course and will have an impact on students’ satisfaction.

Although it is appropriate to adopt formative evaluation as assessment criteria in e-Learning, courses must be designed in coordination with assessment to achieve the best results. The administrative strategy should properly identify different assessment schemes to evaluate learning effects more diversely. In addition to instructors’ evaluations of student performance, self-assessment or even peer assessment could be incorporated in the systems, enabling students to monitor their own achievements. Qualitative schemes may also be implemented to complement quantitative schemes.

Flexibility is viewed as an important factor in e-Learning satisfaction. One of many advantages of online education is its flexibility in which learners choose the most suitable learning methods to accommodate their needs. At all times, system administrators should ensure all system functionalities are available. Periodic assessment of system performance and loading will provide better and uninterrupted operational environments to enhance student satisfaction with e-Learning.

According to this study, learners’ anxiety also hampers their satisfaction. Helping students build their confidence in using computers will make e-learning more enjoyable. A fundamental computer course could be a prerequisite to better prepare students. Lastly, this study finds that instructors’ attitudes toward e-Learning positively influence students’ satisfaction. When instructors are committed to e-Learning and exhibit active and positive attitudes, their enthusiasm will be perceived and further motivate students. In light of this, school administrators must be very careful in selecting instructors for e-Learning courses. Certain instructor training might be very helpful.

This study provides insights for institutions to strengthen their e-Learning implementations and further improve learner satisfaction. An unsatisfactory perception will hamper students’ motivation to continue their distance education. The seven critical factors cannot be neglected when implementing a successful e-learning environment.

Although this research represents a careful and systemic effort to incorporate elements of e-Learning, it is not without limitations. First, the research proposes an integrated model covering a variety of factors influencing e-Learners’ satisfaction; it might not be comprehensive due to the limitations of time and resources. Second, this work focuses on metrics from a specific digital learning system. The variance in different systems is not further investigated. Third, the dependent variable of this study is a single indicator, perceived e-Learner satisfaction. Some researchers suggest that learning performance and student scores could also be considered dependent variables (Alavi et al., 1997, Leidner and Fuller, 1997, Piccoli et al., 2001 and Vogel et al., 2001). Future research might incorporate more variables and examine variance across different learning systems. Fourth, the statistical methods used in this study are based on traditional assumptions; thus our results are established with these assumptions as a base. Finally, this research used stepwise multiple regression analysis to test the significance of variables. In the future, other statistical methods such as SEM (e.g., LISREL, EQS, PLS), or neural network may be employed to explore cause/effect relationship among variables.
With a 45.7% response rate, a total of 295 valid questionnaires were collected. A stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted to study the data. The results indicated that learners’ computer anxiety, instructor attitude toward e-Learning, e-Learning course flexibility, e-Learning course quality, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and diversity in assessment are the critical factors affecting learners’ perceived satisfaction. Together, these seven factors are able to explain 66.1% of the variance of user satisfaction.