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Research Article

eLearning Readiness of Higher Education Faculty Members

Y. Vijaya Lakshmi
Assistant Professor, School of Education, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar,
Gujarat, India
Email: vijaya.lakshmi@cug.ac.in; jayayanduri@gmail.com

Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced all institutions of higher education around the world
to search for various new strategies to ensure the continuity of learning. This emergency
eLearning situation created by the pandemic forced the faculty members of higher
education to integrate information and communication technology in their teaching
learning practices more than ever before. The present cross sectional survey study explores
the readiness of higher education faculty members towards eLearning in terms of their
technological readiness, pedagogical readiness, resource readiness and attitude. A self-
developed likert scale consisting of 62 items measuring various dimensions of eLearning
readiness was used to collect the data from 421 faculty members. The findings of the
study revealed that demographic factors like age, gender, level of education, designation
and discipline does not have any significant influence on the eLearning readiness
scores of faculty members while teaching experience had a significant influence. The
overall score of e-learning readiness was found to be satisfactory. The technological
readiness of faculty members was found to be high compared to their other eLearning
readiness dimensions scores. Faculty members were found to be least ready in terms of
their pedagogical readiness and attitude towards eLearning. To increase the eLearning
readiness of faculty members, the higher education institutions should organize more
and more training and also provide the faculty members with adequate software and
hardware required for adoption of eLearning practices.
Keywords: eLearning readiness, higher education, technological readiness,
pedagogical readiness, resource readiness, attitude, eLearning Readiness of Higher
Education Faculty Members
Introduction methods. eLearning is being looked
up as a potential solution to ensure
The growth and adoption of education
technology is on a rise in education and continuity of learning at all schools
COVID-19 has increased this adoption and universities. The World Economic
further. With the outbreak of COVID-19, Forum reported a surge in the use of
all over the world, an emergency language apps, virtual tutoring, video
e-learning situation is created in conferencing tools, and online learning
educational setup (Michael, 2020) and software in the last three months (Li &
we are left with no other option than Lalani, 2020) and India is no exception
to adopt technology driven teaching to this. There is an e-learning boom in

Indian Journal of Educational Technology 121
Volume 3, Issue 2, July 2021