An analysis of the determinants of students’ performance in e-learning

• We model education production functions using SME.
• Motivation is the most important driving force to explain online students’ achievement.
• Motivation is positively influenced only by students’ perception of their own efficiency.
• Students’ perception about their ability to use digital technologies positively affects achievement.
• Previous experience in higher education and students’ effort show no significant effect on achievement.

Previous studies show empirical evidence on the positive effect on students’ performance from the adoption of innovations in the technology of teaching and learning. These innovations do not affect all teaching methods and learning styles equally. Rather, it depends on some variables, such as the strategy of a university towards adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), students’ abilities, technology uses in the educational process by teachers and students, or the selection of a methodology that matches with digital uses. This paper provides answers to these questions with data from an experimental set-up performed within the eLene-EE project, and using an empirical model based on structural equations. Our results show that motivation is the main variable affecting performance of online students, confirming the importance of this factor as a source of educational efficiency. Motivation appears in our model as a latent variable receiving the influence of students’ perception of efficiency, which is, in turn, a driver for the indirect positive and significant effect on students’ performance from students’ ability in ICT uses.