Assessment of agricultural extension and education graduate students' perceptions of e-learning in Iran

Educational research is an ever-expanding field of study where new methods, systems and new concepts are always being discovered. With the emergence of the Internet, e-learning has increasingly become the promising solution that continues to grow day after day. This paper examines perception of graduate students in Agricultural Extension Education in Iran towards e-learning. A descriptive-correlation survey approach was used in this study. Students (n = 82) filled in a web-based closed questions questionnaire. Reliability and validity of instrument were determined by investigating the attitudes of e-learning and extension specialists and application of Cronbach's (0.94). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data using SPSS Win13. Questionnaires received were analyzed, putting the students' perceptions in relation to gender, age, university, previous knowledge of computers and attitudes to advantages and disadvantages of e-learning. Results showed that students have positive perception to e-learning. The results also indicated that male students, students with previous knowledge of computers and students with positive attitudes to new technologies were all more positive in favour to e-learning than other students. There were significant relationship between computer and internet skills of students and their perceptions of e-learning. Therefore from the student's point of view, e-learning can be used as complementary approach with current system to improving educational quality in agricultural extension and education in higher Education. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved