Abstract:

Education is a crucial determinant of financial and social improvement of a country and implies the nature of its human asset improvement. The education market in India is currently valued at US$ 100 billion and is expected to nearly double to US$ 180 billion by 2020. There has been a surge in the number of educational apps that have been introduced in the Indian market. Currently, there are more than 3.17 million applications available in various app stores, out of which approximately 15%-16% apps are categorized under education.It is a dynamic approach which uses parallel methods of student engagements for developing their spatial skills and promotes experiential learning. In the above context, it is important to understand the reasons why students are enrolling for online learning websites or apps. The study has been conducted to achieve following objectives: To study the perception of students towards online learning apps and websites; To examine the parameters leading to adoption and continuation usage of online learning apps and websites; To analyse the difference among students in their intention to use online learning apps regarding their selected demographic profile.

A total of 250 students of Standard IX to XII from different Education boards were surveyed in the Delhi. The research hypothesizes seven constructs, i.e. Perceived ease of use, Perceived Usefulness, Social Influence (parents, teachers, peers), Affordability, Engagement, Content Quality and Trust to that determine Behavioural Intention to use and Continuous intention to use online learning apps. Study attempts to examine the perception of students towards usage of online learning website and apps. The proposed measurement model has been assessed conducting Confirmatory Factor Analysis and ANOVA was applied to test the difference in the behavioral usage intention among students in terms of their age, course majors, gender and school type (government owned or privately owned).

• The results of p-value for path analysis in the proposed model shows that except affordability all other six constructs are significant in explaining the behavioral usage intention. The significant p-values for Perceived ease of use, Perceived Usefulness and Content quality is less than 0.05 implying that these constructs influence the Continuous usage of Online learning websites and apps.
• As per the results of ANOVA there is significant difference among students towards behavioural usage intention of online learning regarding their gender and school type.

The findings indicate that face to face teaching is still the most preferred mode of learning, but online education also provides a potential alternative to the senior school students. Features like anytime-anywhere access, more exposure and exhaustive question bank make it more satisfying and wholesome. More technical subjects like Maths, Physics and Accounts can be easily comprehended with the help of online tutorials as a three-dimensional preview is possible. The classroom experience which the students found missing can be further created by providing possibility of interaction among the users. The market is in developing stage with every new entrant proposing and claiming a cutting-edge feature for differentiation. The underlying reasons of preference among students pertaining to online apps will help marketers for better development of learning apps.

Keywords:

Perceived Ease of use, Perceived Usefulness, Social Influence.