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The COVID-19 pandemic is a brutal event that has created a disruption in the functioning of universities. Indeed, as an attempt to control its spread, several countries imposed a period of total containment, which caused a suspension of in-class sessions. Faced with this uncontrolled shock, the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education (TMHE) decided to incite public universities to use e-learning via the Moodle Distance Learning Platform (MDLP) of the Virtual University of Tunis (VUT). However, this decision generated mixed reactions on the part of students as well as teachers. Formal meetings between teachers’ and students’ unions representatives and TMHE representatives, as well as informal debates among teachers on the social network Facebook let notice that some accepted this decision, whereas others repudiate it. Those who criticized the Ministry’ decision think that e-learning must not substitute in-class sessions and that it will be inequitable particularly for students who lack adequate resources to access the MDLP.
Thus, this research aims to study the teachers’ Intention to Use (IU) the MDLP during the containment period and its Continuance Usage Intention (CUI) in the future. It seeks to answer two questions: What are the determinants of the teachers’ IU the MDLP? Will they have the intention to continue using it in the future?
Although this research is conducted before the use of MDLP by teachers (adoption phase), it aims to study the determinants of both MDLP’s IU and its CUI. Studying IU and CUI is justified by several reasons. First, the TMHE left teachers decide which tool to choose to keep in touch with students. Second, using the MDLP is the best alternative adopted by the Ministry to ensure pedagogical continuity and to assist students. In fact, to implement its decision the Ministry concluded conventions with private Internet providers for students’ free access to the MDLP. Moreover, actions to distribute computers and tablets to the have nots were taken. Third, this experience is going to be the beginning of future e-learning experiences in public universities. In fact, while intervening in the media, the General Director of Renovation University considers capitalizing the experience of online education during containment period to establish online courses in public universities in the future.
This paper is organized in 5 sections. The first and second will present the theoretical framework and hypotheses development. In section 3, the research method will be presented. In sections 4 and 5, findings will be respectively shown and discussed. The paper ends up with conclusion, limitations and future research directions.