The Pedagogy of E-learning

III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A qualitative approach was adopted involving two principal data collection methods; a thorough and systematic review literature and in-depth interviews on critical pedagogical approaches, technologies supporting those pedagogies and management of learning resources with e-learning providers. Reasons for adopting detailed interviews are as follows: First, interviews are appropriate to examine the extent to which the critical factors identified from literature and empirical studies are practiced. Accordingly, it was deemed that interviews are particularly suitable for understanding versatile beliefs and practices of individual e-learning stakeholder in assessing what works the best (or worst) to enhance e-learning effectiveness. Second, e-learning ecosystem is a complex system, which requires acceptance and adaptation by e-learning providers. For this reason, evaluating the perceptions of staff involved in e-learning environment is necessary to identify the critical factors facilitating or impeding e-learning success. Third, sustainability of e-learning success requires the three components of e-learning ecosystem to function as a unit mutually benefitting each other. To fully understand the interaction between these components, interview method was considered to be effective. Fourth, this research is intended to develop and test the research model with a wider audience as a follow up research. This again requires identification of multiple views and concrete factors contributing to success of e-learning ecosystem. Accordingly, interview method of data collection is considered to be appropriate to gain insight into multiple perspectives on contributing factors as well as inhibiting factors within the thr...

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... taken such as online investigation of the prospective interviewee’s about their suitability for the interview, discussion of the research questions and interpretation with the co-researcher and comparison of interviews to predict the result enhancing the accuracy and trustworthiness of the results. To guarantee internal validity, two critical strategies namely method triangulation and data triangulation were employed to understand the underlying relationship between critical intertwined factors. In this research, qualitative method triangulation includes systematic literature review and interviews and qualitative data triangulation for this research involved multiple interviews and multiple data sources. Finally, adequate measures were taken to maintain external validity by explicitly stating the methodological details to enable both generalization and replication.