Abstract:

Students’ satisfaction influences the students’ level of motivation which is an important psychological factor in students’ success. Meeting and exceeding the students’ expectations not only satisfies students but also promote the university and their courses. There are three main factors that influence the students’ satisfaction: teacher/tutor, technology, and interactivity. The teacher is not only a facilitator of learning but also a motivator for the students. In the context of teaching-learning environment, the access to technology is one of the most important factors that influence the students’ satisfaction. Therefore, a Learning Management System (LMS) allows a social interaction and creates meaningful learning experiences and contribute to positive learning outcomes.
High levels of students’ satisfaction with the use of LMS reflect the students’ perceptions in relation to the enjoyment and accomplishment in learning environment. This satisfaction is a consequence of the sum of students’ feelings and attitudes that result from aggregating all expectations and benefits that student hopes to receive from a LMS. Thus, students’ satisfaction is essential and needs to be continuous to assure the quality of experiences with LMS.
The presented study was conducted based on a sample composed of 150 students of several scientific areas of the University of Azores. The aim is to evaluate the satisfaction levels in relation to the use of the Moodle Learning Management System (Moodle LMS) in the context of the teaching-learning process.
The survey included some socio-demographic and academic variables (e.g., “Gender”, “Age group”, “Year of the course”, “Employment situation”, “Do you already attended some training on information technologies?”, “Do you usually contact the teachers during the office hours?”, “Study time (in hours)”. The questionnaire also contains a scale composed by nine items on a five-point scale, from 1-“very unsatisfied” to 5-“very satisfied”, in order to evaluate the students’ satisfaction levels about the Moodle LMS. We also intend to compare the satisfaction levels of the students about the Moodle LMS in regard to their socio-demographic and academic characteristics using various methods of data analysis (descriptive statistics, nonparametric tests and cluster analysis). The "Speed of availability of contents" was the only item which the percentage (42%) of students who are satisfied or very satisfied was less than 50%. Moreover, the "Accessibility to the Moodle LMS platform" was the item with the highest percentage of students who are satisfied or very satisfied. The results point to the existence of statistically significant differences between students with "20 years old or less" and those with "more than 20 years old" regarding the scores obtained in the scale that evaluates the satisfaction levels in relation to the Moodle LMS. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that the younger ones tended to have lower total scores on this scale. The results of cluster analysis and the analysis of students’ profiles, taking in to account their satisfaction levels with the Moodle LMS, allow to identify the main characteristics of the students included in each one the groups (clusters) and to develop new strategies of motivation and feedback to be tested in future.

Keywords:

Students’ satisfaction, Learning Management System, Teaching-learning environment, Data analysis.