Relationship between performance expectancy and student’s utilization of open educational resources for academic work in private universities in Kenya

Abstract

Today, an increasing number of institutions and individuals share open digital resources via the Internet without use of passwords and keys. This has opened up the way learners in higher education access information for academic work. The high demand for university education in Kenya has put more pressure on the existing learning resources such as print resources, whose cost partly makes education more expensive. As such, open educational resources may be part of a solution to this problem. However, the utilization of open educational resources (OERs) has not been taken up fully by institutions of higher learning. There are many factors which may have an effect on students’ utilization of OERs. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between performance expectancy and students utilization of open educational resources for academic work in private universities in Kenya. The study was guided by one objective; to determine the effect of performance expectancy, on students’ utilization of open educational resources for academic work. The study used cross sectional research design. It targeted 17 chartered private universities in Kenya. In the private universities there are 14,250 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students. Five (5) private universities were sampled through simple random sampling. They constituted 30.0% of the 17 private chartered universities. Proportionate sampling was used to determine the respondents from each university. Simple random sampling was used to select respondents from the 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students. Data were collected using students’ questionnaire (SQUOER) and interview guide for key informants. Content and face validity for SQUOER was checked by two research experts. Reliability was estimated through the use of Cronbach alpha coefficient. The student questionnaire yielded an overall reliability coefficient of 0.92 which was found acceptable for this study. Quantitative data were analyzed using percentages, frequencies, means and regression analysis. Qualitative data were reported in terms of narrations based on the themes under study and they were used to corroborate the quantitative results. The study revealed that performance expectancy had a relationship with utilization of OERs and was significant (β= .369; p < 0.05). This implied that performance expectancy positively affect students utilization of OERs for academic work at p<.05. The study recommends that private universities have to maintain proper facilities, infrastructure and working environment for potential users of OERs to utilize them for academic work.