ASSESSING SERVICE QUALITY AND ADULT LEARNERS’ SATISFACTION IN E- LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

The advent of Information and communication technologies (ICT) and the Internet have resulted in the development of e-learning. E-learning has been perceived as the catalyst of lifelong learning in education where learners learn to seek out new and current information. Nonetheless, e-learning is one of the Malaysian government initiatives to encourage public participants, particularly among community of adult learners to engage in continuous education. In this aspect, public and private universities have become the main players in providing curriculum and programs, infrastructures and facilities, integration of ICT in teaching and learning and upgrading of ICT knowledge among students and lecturers. However, many universities have encountered problems when it comes to implementing e-learning and IT teaching strategies and these include the issues of customers’ satisfaction and service quality. In fact, service quality has become a main factor to determine whether e-learning is successful or otherwise. Hence, without providing accurate level of satisfaction to customer with good levels of service quality, no business can survive or sustain. Therefore, this study was intended to assess the relationship between service quality and satisfaction among adult learners of UiTM, Shah Alam. Hence, based on Cohen’s formula, a sample size of 350 was determined. Nevertheless, there were about 222 adult learners responded the questionnaires. Pearson’s Product –Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to measure the strength and direction of the relationship between the two variables. The finding revealed that there was a moderate and positive relationship between service quality and students’ satisfaction. This study has several practical implications to the educational providers, instructional designers and instructors in order to sustain its competitiveness in providing quality education and services.