Structural relationships among internal locus of control, institutional support, flow, and learner persistence in cyber universities

Abstract

Although cyber education has become significant due to the development of appropriate information and communication technology, it has a problem as compared to traditional educational methods' learning outcomes: a low rate of learner persistence. Learning outcomes in the cyber environment are complex phenomena affected by various factors, which need integrative comprehension regarding how the variables affect learning outcomes, for qualitative improvement. The current study aimed to establish a structural equation model explaining the causal relationships among internal locus of control, institutional support, flow, and learner persistence, and to examine the practical direct and indirect effects among them. Therefore, we conducted surveys on these variables, in order to examine the causal relationships among them. We received responses from 568 students at W Cyber University. The results indicate direct effects between learner's internal locus of control and flow (ß = .273), between institutional support and flow (ß = .487), between internal locus of control and flow (ß = .333), and between flow and learner persistence (ß = .705). In addition, we found flow has an intermediating effect between internal locus of control and learner persistence and between institutional support and learner persistence. We propose strategies to raise learner persistence by improving the learner's internal locus of control, institutional support, and flow based on these results. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.