An exploration of eLearning adoption in the educational ecosystem

Abstract

Teaching and learning processes have not experienced major changes during the last centuries. However, eLearning platforms may transform these processes, turning the classroom from a teacher-centered and standardized space into a student-centered, customizable and highly scalable environment. These changes impact many different stakeholders such as parents, teachers, universities, software developers and textbook publishers. Therefore, to fully understand the adoption process of an innovation such as eLearning, using traditional technology adoption models that center on a single stakeholder (the end-user) may not be enough. Perspectives from multiple stakeholders must be considered. These stakeholders may come from different industries that make up an ecosystem. Hence, this study aims to explore eLearning adoption through an ecosystem perspective. In order to do so, 58 in-depth interviews were conducted with representatives from 6 different ecosystem stakeholders in the Brazilian higher education ecosystem. Using discourse analysis, the study identified 10 general constructs that simultaneously influence distinct stakeholders in the Brazilian higher education ecosystem in their intention to adopt eLearning.