The Need of a Multidimensional Analysis for the Success of E-Learning Programs

Abstract

Many e-education practitioners consider online learning programs to be an effective proposal looking at the instrumental rationality and applying only quantitative tools for the evaluation/research. However, in practice they have shown difficulties in assuring university program quality and solving many problems: dropouts, improvement of learning outcomes, qualified labor occupancy, etc. It is necessary to formulate and practice a multidimensional approach including a strong socio-cultural interpretation of the scenarios and needs of the participants-users, the prevalent philosophy and mentalities of the people and contexts, towards a genuine improvement of the e-learning programs. A qualitative multi-dimensional model establishes more awareness of the program components and gives inputs/recommendations to know more, to adjust/re-design implementation and evaluation processes of the virtual proposals confronted with practice. Those considerations should be studied according the pertinence (or not) of the political decision-making centrality. The existent (or not) professionalization of tutors and evaluators, a sustainable investments in infrastructure, the organizational communication models, and more have to be taken into account. The model has to be discussed and criticized beyond the different results that recent studies have yielded, including the same socio-cultural aspects that several studies have determined lately. This chapter explores this.