Students’ perspective on knowledge quality in eLearning context: a qualitative assessment

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the unique d i mensions associated with knowledge quality (KQ) based on students’ perception in an educational institution. Design/methodology/approach – Purposive sampling was used to select students who were active users of the electronic-Learning (eLearning) system at two faculties in a single university. The qualitative data gathering employed an unstructured open-ended questionnaire distributed to the 52 selected participants. Findings – The qualitative findings unearth the students’ perspective about quality of knowledge gained from content used in online courses. In total, 34 underlying sub-dimensions of KQ emerged, which were categorized into five KQ dimensions: intrinsic KQ, contextual KQ, representational KQ, accessible KQ, and actionable KQ. Research limitations/implications – The findings provide an insight to educators to consider KQ dimensions in providing quality knowledge to students in an eLearning environment. Originality/value – Previous studies have used information quality dimensions to measure KQ because of a lack of conceptualization of KQ that leads to difficulties in operationalizing this construct. In this study, a conceptual and operational definition of KQ, in the context of eLearning, is proposed based on grounded data from students participating in an online learning environment.