Looking for student success factors outside of the educators' scope : the effect of digital literacy, personal skills, and learning habits and conditions on self-evaluated online learning effectiveness in management education

Abstract

The present study explored factors that significantly impact learning effectiveness in an online environment. Independent variables such as digital literacy, personal cognitive skills and attitudes (e.g., motivation), and online learning habits and conditions (student identity, time and task management, etc.) have been identified, studied in the literature, and measured with an online self-evaluated questionnaire. Based on our focus groups and the answers of 1447 bachelor students of four management programs, digital literacy, personal cognitive skills, and online learning habits and conditions all have a significant, positive effect on online learning effectiveness with various weights. The theoretical contribution is the weighted list of variables significantly impacting online learning effectiveness. The contribution to practice includes recommendations to students and educators on enhancing online learning effectiveness. Our results highlight the importance of learning habits and conditions and suggest a stronger focus on student identity in all online learning environments.