Students’ perspective on knowledge quality in eLearning context: a qualitative assessment
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the unique d
i
mensions associated with knowledge quality (KQ) based on students’ perception in an educational institution.
Design/methodology/approach
Purposive sampling was used to select students who were active users of the electronic-Learning (eLearning) system at two faculties in a single university. The qualitative data gathering employed an unstructured open-ended questionnaire distributed to the 52 selected participants.
Findings
The qualitative findings unearth the students’ perspective about quality of knowledge gained from content used in online courses. In total, 34 underlying sub-dimensions of KQ emerged, which were categorized into five KQ dimensions: intrinsic KQ, contextual KQ, representational KQ, accessible KQ, and actionable KQ.
Research limitations/implications
The findings provide an insight to educators to consider KQ dimensions in providing quality knowledge to students in an eLearning environment.
Originality/value
Previous studies have used information quality dimensions to measure KQ because of a lack of conceptualization of KQ that leads to difficulties in operationalizing this construct. In this study, a conceptual and operational definition of KQ, in the context of eLearning, is proposed based on grounded data from students participating in an online learning environment.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study is supported by PPP Grant No. PG003-2014A awarded by University of Malaya.
Citation
Waheed, M., Kaur, K. and Qazi, A. (2016), "Students’ perspective on knowledge quality in eLearning context: a qualitative assessment", Internet Research, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 120-145. https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-08-2014-0199
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited