Determinants of E-Learning Adoption among Students in Sierra Leone's Public Tertiary Institutions: A Cross-Institutional Survey of Digital Readiness, Communal Learning Preferences, and Platform Fit

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic has forced Higher Education (HE) institutions to undergo a digital transformation that has reshaped their operations and made online learning platforms a necessity instead of a luxury. The adoption of e-learning is not uniform in Sierra Leone where seven public tertiary institutions have more than 40,000 students. Learners often use the resources provided for the course, but do not use interactive and collaborative resources very often. This partial adoption brings up important questions relating to how certain student behaviors are connected to the use of e-learning platforms, and why adoption levels may differ in various institutional contexts. This study investigates adoption factors of e-learning from students' perspectives in public tertiary institutions in Sierra Leone, which includes digital readiness, communal learning orientation and platform fit. The study combines existing technology acceptance factors with culturally-based constructs and context factors. The design of the study used was cross-sectional with 1100 undergraduate students from seven institutions. Hypothesized relations were tested by using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results indicate that communal learning orientation had a significant total direct effect on e-learning adoption, and this effect was partially mediated by platform fit which accounted for 51.9% of the total effect. The results indicated that there were significant differences between the groups, with perceived usefulness being the most important at the institutions that had partial implementation of LMS, the facilitating conditions at the institutions where infrastructure was limited, and the digital readiness at the polytechnic. The study has both theoretical and practical implications, as it offers a possible mediating mechanism (platform fit), and evidence for differentiated intervention frameworks, and methodological implications by operationalizing communal learning orientation as a measurable construct.