E-learning effectiveness from a students’ perspective: an empirical study

E-learning is pervading higher education, being a convenient training opportunity in a busy and demanding society. Despite being a popular phenom-enon both in research and in practice, e-learning is however far from being suc-cessfully implemented in any context. This is a matter of both inadequate explo-ration of the learners’ perspective and insufficient reflection about the implica-tions for the instructors. This paper focuses on the first aspect, surveying 277 university students about their opinion and experience of e-learning. The results are partially unexpected and expected: first, despite recognizing a positive fu-ture trend for e-learning, students are still confused with regard to its meaning and have a only limited awareness of its potentialities. Secondly, despite the general familiarity with its use, there is still a high percentage of students who haven’t used e-learning yet and who are uninterested in using it. Thirdly, e-learning seems to present more advantages than disadvantages, yet there are still many areas to work on to make e-learning really works. Based on these findings, we develop some managerial implications for instructors and educa-tional organizations.