Moving away from a student satisfaction: evaluating educational technologies in a holistic context

While students’ satisfaction is often considered an important factor in evaluation of different on-campus technologies, there is a paucity of studies placing this satisfaction in a holistic context. The personal attributes of students and their understanding of their own learning needs tend to be neglected when making technology adoption decisions based on satisfaction alone. In this paper we describe the development and initial validation of a survey instrument that is inclusive of all these considerations. The instrument was piloted with 273 students in regard to the Moodle LMS. Since the field of educational technology evaluation is still emerging, validating this instrument and identifying the contextual factors should contribute to the future development of the field and also assist educational practitioners in their own adoption decisions. Survey results are discussed in relation to students’ perceptions of on-campus technologies.