Effect of E-learning on Management Undergraduates' Academic Success during COVID-19: A Study at Non-state Universities in Sri Lanka

Heliyon. 2023 Aug 21;9(9):e19293. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19293. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Abstract

Education also becomes one of the basic needs of all human being in the today's world. Due to the rapid advancement of the information and communication technology during the past years emphasize the necessity of using e-learning in the education sector. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, all the countries developed and developing had to quickly move from conventional learning methods to e-learning. As a developing country Sri Lankan education sector also adopt the e-learning as a solution for continuing education process. The prime objective of this study is to examine the impact of e-learning on university undergraduates' academic success in the context of management faculties in non-state universities in Sri Lanka. A deductive quantitative research approach utilized for the data collection and analysis. The study population is 2500 undergraduates who are studying in the year 3 and 4 belongs to the management faculties of two non-state universities. Out of the total population 332 undergraduates were selected using convenience sampling technique. An online questionnaire survey conducted to collect data and simple linear regression models employed for data analysis. To ensure the overall reliability of the gathered data, Cronbach's alpha values checked. The findings revealed that e-learning has a significant positive impact on academic success along with a strong correlation of 0.872. According to the main study findings, there is a positive moderating effect on student satisfaction between e-learning and academic success while showing a strong correlation of 0.774. The major findings of this study give insights for higher educational institutions to create new initiatives to direct undergraduates towards the academic success with e-learning exposure.

Keywords: Academic success; COVID-19; E-learning; Grade point average; Higher educational institutes; Non state universities.