Modern Technological advances and accessibility to the Internet have led to an increase in online learning compared with traditional learning environments.
psychology
Description
Online learning environments and its
effect on Self efficacy, Motivation and Anxiety Levels
Modern
Technological advances and accessibility to the Internet have led to an
increase in online learning compared with traditional learning environments.
Online learning offers learning experiences with technology, which provides
accessibility, connectivity, flexibility, and ability to promote interactions
among learners. As the number of online-learning users continues to increase,
there is a need to understand how students can best apply learning strategies
to achieve academic success within the online environment. Self-efficacy is the
belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the requisite actions
required to produce particular results.
Beliefs
about self-efficacy determine level of motivation as reflected in the amount of
effort exerted in an effort and the time devoted to a challenging situation. If
persons have a low level of self-efficacy toward a task, they are less likely
to exert effort and accomplish the task. Research findings have demonstrated
that self-efficacy is a better predictor of academic achievement than other
cognitive or affective processes. Therefore, self-efficacy is critical to
learning and performance. Student self-efficacy seems particularly important in
challenging learning environments, such as an online learning one where
students lack opportunities to interact with others and as a result can become
socially isolated. Also, the drop-out rate among students in online learning
environments is higher than that in traditional learning environments. Drop-out
rate also related with a lack of self-efficacy.
Understanding
self-efficacy in online learning is critical to improving online education,
which can be a key component of academic success in distance education.
However, the focuses of the previous studies were mostly on the situation of
self-efficacy in online learning. There have been very few works analysing
factors effecting correlating variables such as self-efficacy and trait anxiety
levels. As a result, this quantitative study aims to examine the relationships
within the variables being self-efficacy, motivation and trait anxiety levels
in the online learning environment.
