EFFECTS OF STUDENTS' CHARACTERISTICS ON ONLINE LEARNING READINESS: A Vocational College Example

Educational institutions rapidly adopt concepts and practices of online learning systems for students. But many institutions' online learning programs face enormous difficulty in achieving successful strategies. It is essential to evaluate its different aspects and understand factors which influence its effectiveness. Readiness stands out among the variables that influence online learning effectiveness. Therefore, it is important to examine online learning readiness (OLR) and students' characteristics that affect OLR. This paper reports relationship between student characteristics and OLR at vocational college. Quantitative method was used to collect relevant data in this study. Hung et al.'s Online Learning Readiness Scale (OLRS) was administered to 725 vocational college students, in Balikesir. OLRS has 18 items grouped into five factors; computer/Internet self-efficacy (CIS), self-directed learning (SDL), learner control (LC), motivation for learning (ML), and online communication self-efficacy (OCS). t-test and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were used to determine if there were significant differences in online learning readiness across the students' characteristics. The study revealed that students surveyed overall ready for online learning but they need to improve themselves especially in CIS and OCS in order to be successful at online learning. Students' characteristics (PC ownership, department, type of high school graduation) significantly affect learners' in some dimensions of OLRS especially CIS dimension. The research findings were discussed in line with the literature and some suggestions were presented for further research and researchers.