Digital transformation in higher education from online learning perspective: A comparative study of Singapore and Vietnam

Abstract

Digital transformation has been inevitable in all socio-economic fields, including higher education. Recently, under the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic, many universities have to change their entire teaching systems to online learning to ensure their students' learning is not interrupted. Thus, it is essential to study how universities’ students, educators, and administrators perceive online learning in different countries. To this aim, this study investigates the factors affecting university members' preference for online learning in Singapore and Vietnam. Using a cross-country sample with a sound theoretical framework of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), we found that each member group in the university was influenced by a different weight of factors. Specifically, students' preference for online learning is most affected by their technical skills. Meanwhile, educators and administrators are influenced mainly by the perceived usefulness of online learning and practice conditions, respectively. We further conducted multi-group testing and confirmed the certain separation in online learning preferences of observed objects between the two countries. Overall, this paper enriches the literature on online education, and has important implications for educational policymakers and university stakeholders both during and after the pandemic.