Factors Influencing Intentions to use Digital Learning during COVID-19 Outbreak in Sindh: An Empirical Study

Abstract

This study aims to determine the intention of the students towards the use of digital learning during the COVID-19 outbreak as it impacts to cover the syllabus and face the learning management at risk. The rising dilemma of the COVID-19 urged the world communities to adopt the Digital system in the learning sphere to mitigate the psychological stress of the pandemic as Pakistan also moved to meet the criteria accordingly. The current research investigates the university students’ perception to apply the digital learning system in the way to regulate their online classes among the graduate to the Ph.D. level in Sindh. For the discovering the opinion of the digital learning users the behavioral determinants as perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU), social influence (SI), perceived quality (PQ), and intention to use e-learning (IEL) have been proposed and these constructs are used to envisage the students intentional level to use the wireless technology in their online classes in a Pakistan point of view. The data was collected through the students using an online survey of the Mehran University of Engineering & Technology Jamshoro, in which 249 respondents participated via their online feedback to fill the questionnaires. The theoretical approach pursues to encircle the technological acceptance model and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology to find out the users intention to use the digital learning and the data analysis was carried out through utilizing SPSS version 24 and the hypotheses were tested through the regressions and correlations. The given results highlight that all proposed factors reveal the significant and positive relationship with dependent variable. The limitation of the prevailing study is concerned with the use of wireless technology in educational sector within a particular institution and findings could assist the students to adopt the online learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. The overall findings lead towards proposed framework and its practical implications.