2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a swift transition from in-person to online learning, eliciting a spectrum of responses from students and prompting numerous institutions to develop online programs. Our study explores the challenges Generation Z students faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a specific focus on understanding how their backgrounds influenced their interactions with e-learning platforms, including their learning styles, personalities, GPA, housing, voluntariness of use, and quality of internet access. To acquire comprehensive data, we formulated an online survey targeting Generation Z university students with multiple semesters of online learning experience from multiple disciplines including engineering, business, journalism, law, fine arts, education, biology, and more. This survey aimed to collect information on their demographic details, personality traits, learning styles, and perceptions of their online learning experience using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) which has been used repetitively in literature. With 1000 valid responses, the survey yielded a substantial dataset for in-depth analysis. After cleaning and transforming the data, we had 948 data points with which to conduct a series of ANOVA analyses; it was found that learning style, personality, and quality of internet access had significant relationships with every TAM factor, including actual use, behavioral intention to use, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use. GPA and voluntariness had significant relationships with actual use and perceived usefulness. Housing had no effect on any of the TAM factors. This study provides valuable insights into how students' unique backgrounds shape their educational journeys, insights which program managers and new educators can utilize to inform the design of new programs.