METHODOLOGY:

Q. Please give a brief justification of your proposed research project:

The research objective of this study is to examine whether there is a relationship between student
motivation and e-learning, while also focussing on the factors that lead to motivation of students in
higher education the most. The variables which will be used for assessing the relationship between the
concepts of e learning and student motivation will include a mix of:

• Gender of student

• Program Type

• GPA

• Learning Environment

• Teacher Behavior

• Teaching Methods (distance/blended)

• Students' attitude towards technology

• Parental Habits and Involvement

• Family Issues and Instability.

• Peer Pressure and Peer Relationships.

All in all, the purpose of this study is to entail the results of the research carried out, focussing on the
motivation of students participating in the research.

Q. Please outline the proposed sample group, including any specific criteria:

The Sample group will be open to undergraduate university going students age bracket ranging between
18-25-year olds. The sample will aim to include representation across: (a) Genders, (b) Program
Structure (limited to undergraduate only), (c) Students receiving instruction in forms of distance and/or
blended, and (d) Academic Disciplines (such as BBA/ ACF/ SS/CS/ LAW/ MEDICINE etc).

We will use random and snowballing sampling method. Our aim is to record minimum of 50 responses in
the questionnaires and minimum of 12 participants in the two-focus group (six participants in each)

Moreover, in depth interviews will be conducted with students who have willingly opted to take online
courses on coursera and edX during the COVID-19 break. This will help our study differentiate between
the motivating factors amongst both groups; those who enrolled in online courses forcefully as well as
those who enrolled willingly.
Q. Indicate clearly what the involvement of the sample group will be in the research process:

The main purpose of the focus groups and in-depth interviews in the exploratory phase of the research
is to develop insights and reach a consensus agreement on what variables to focus on in the second
phase of our causal research. The results of these will be used to develop the survey, which will then be
sent out to a large representative sample group of undergraduate university students identified.

The first group will consist participants who are taking online classes of their respective universities
whereas, the second group will consist participants who have taken online courses on platforms such as
Coursera and edX willingly.

Each focus group will have will 6 students and their duration will be approximately between 40 – 60
minutes. The location will be decided based on the convenience of the students who volunteer to be a
part of the focus group. In case a location is undecided, we will conduct a zoom meeting. The focus
group will be an informal session with structured questions.

The questions in the focus groups will include demographic questions, followed by, what motivates
them to opt e -learning methods and so on. After analysing the results of the focus groups and
interviews the study will demonstrate a clearer identification of factors that affect the motivation of
students opting for e -learning courses.

The responses recorded in the focus groups and interviews will be transcribed and reported. Insights
gained from this phase will be used to construct a questionnaire consisting of approximately 20
questions which should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. The online questionnaire will
include a number of sections addressing: demographic questions, what motivates them to opt e-learning
methods, interaction and communication, user’s perception of technology and questions regarding the 5
identified scales.

The data gathered from focus-groups, interviews and surveys will be used to establish relationships
among variables. Tables, pie/bar charts, and cross-tabulation would be made for questionnaire
containing scales to gain knowledge about the distribution of the identified variables.

The data recorded would be passed through the SPSS software to provide us with data analysis of
statistic and predictions. SPSS software would further perform graphing and data transformation.
Further data analysis would be done by taking out variance and checking if the data collected is
averaged or different.

Q. Specify how the consent of participants will be obtained.  Please include within this a description of
any information with which you intend to provide the subjects:

A week prior to conducting focus groups and in-depth interviews, all participants will be e-mailed
a consent form accompanied by an information sheet giving full details of the research and its
scope. They will be asked to bring a signed copy on the day the focus group runs.

Q. Indicate any potential risks to subjects and how you propose to minimise these:
Participation in the focus-groups, questionnaires and in-depth interviews presents no potential
risks to the participants. The email addresses from which responses will be sent when filling in
an online questionnaire, will be automatically removed by the survey software used
(SurveyMonkey). The identity of respondents will therefore not be known to the researchers at
the survey return stage. Only the participant’s organization will be named when submitting
Research Reports.

Q. Describe the procedures you intend to follow in order to maintain the anonymity and
confidentiality of the subjects

Data collection for this research involves participants completing an online questionnaire, some of which
will be called in for an in-depth interview and focus groups. The data gathered, which will be inclusive of
personal information, will be kept secured by the researchers, at no point will the data be accessible to
anyone outside. The details of participants will be completely destroyed once the information has been
screened, synthesized and analysed for factors of student motivation in e-learning.