Towards Understanding the Students’ Acceptance of MOOCs: A Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)

Abstract

Massive Open student’s courses (MOOC) have stimulated the efforts made for improving the learning techniques and enhancing it the spectrum for students learning. Unfortunately, the acceptance of MOOC as a learning instrument re-mained low, which is perceived as an entertainment tool rather than an academic tool, particularly in developing countries. The study evaluated the student’s adap-tation of MOOC as an academic tool. It developed an understanding of the asso-ciated factors which impact the students’ decision towards utilizing MOOC as a learning instrument. It initially investigated the constructs of the native UTAUT, subsequent to which is derived theory from the literature, amplifying the UTAUT theory scope by instigating e-learning factors associated with MOOC, such as at-titude and self-efficacy. Based on the established framework, a survey was con-ducted where 150 MOOCs’ students were recruited. The collected data were sta-tistically analyzed using SPSS. The results showed that acceptance of the MOOCs was substantially affected by its performance expectancy, effort expec-tancy, social influence, self-efficiency, attitude, and facilitating conditions. It also suggested that efforts should be introduced to promote the use of MOOCs among the academic institutes in Saudi Arabia.