Motivations and perceived barriers towards online education among nursing undergraduates at KIU, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The students are enrolling in online education methods in higher education and many educational institutes all over the world have moved to the online educational system due to its benefits and the demand. The objective of the study was to assess the motivations and perceived barriers towards online education among nursing undergraduates at KIU, Sri Lanka. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 325 nursing undergraduates using a google questionnaire form which was pre-tested. It consisted with 25 questions under subtopics of demographic data, perceived barrier factors and motivational factors. Data were analyzed using percentages and chi squire test using SPSS 25 version. The mean age of the respondents was 30.73 (±SD 3.05) years and 98.8% were female. The majority of the participants (94.8%) perceived that online education is more useful for educational curriculum, and 57.5% were motivated with online education, due to its benefit of ―saving time‖. Isolation, while online education had been identified as a disadvantage of widening of knowledge by 75.1% of participants and 61.5%, suggested creating online group collaborative activities while conducting online education to be more interactive and effective. The major barriers towards the online education, according to the participants, were issues related to internet connection (84%) and occupational responsibilities (76.6%). Marital status shows significant association between the financial status as the perceived barrier over the online education among nursing undergraduates at KIU (p=0.008) and a significant association was observed between marital status with hours spent on online education per week among nursing undergraduates at KIU (p=0.015). In conclusion, increased job responsibilities and issues related to internet connections were the major barriers in online education. Further, marital status was significantly associated with financial status, and the number of hours spent on online learning among Nursing Undergraduates.