The Learners' Attitudes towards Using Different Learning Methods in E-Learning Portal Environment

This study investigates the learners’ attitudes towards using academic, collaborative and social interaction in e-learning portal environment. Academic interaction consists of interaction between learners and online learning resources such as online reading, online explanation, online examination and also online question answering. Collaborative interaction occurs when learners interact among themselves using online group discussion. Social interaction happens when learners and instructors participate in the session either via online text chatting or voice chatting. The study employed quantitative methodology where data were collected through questionnaire that was administered to 933 distance education students from Bachelor of Management, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Social Science and Bachelor of Art. The survey responses were tabulated in a 5-point Likert scale and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Version 12.0 based on frequency and percentage distribution. The result of the study suggested that among three types of interaction, most of the student prefer academic interaction for their learning supports in elearning portal compared to collaborative and social interaction. They wish to interact with learning content rather than interact with people. They prefer to read and learn from the resources rather than sharing knowledge among themselves and instructors via collaborative and social interaction. Keywords—academic interaction, collaborative interaction, e-learning, and social interaction.