چكيده به لاتين
Despite a large body of research on satisfaction of online students, it seems there is no study investigating the contribution of three predictors of barriers, motivation, and e-readiness to satisfaction of online students. This study aimed to explore the extent to which barriers, motivation, and readiness correlate to the satisfaction of online students. One hundred and fourteen Iranian online graduate students of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) at the Iran University of Science and Technology were the participants of this study. The Elder Learning Barriers Scale (ELB), a questionnaire on motivation of online students, a questionnaire on readiness of online students, a questionnaire on satisfaction of online students, and four open-ended questions were the instruments of this study. The results of the study showed that the students’ motivation had the most contribution to students' satisfaction, whereas the least contribution was related to students’ barriers. In addition, the result of online instructors’ and students’ viewpoints showed that (a) the motivation of online students was mostly instrumental, (b) a part of the students were not completely ready for online education, and (c) most of the students were satisfied with the online graduate program of TEFL. This study shed lights on the barriers, motivation, readiness, and the factors contributing to satisfaction of online students. Furthermore, the online instructors and e-learning campuses can make use of the pedagogical implications of this study to solve students’ problems and increase their motivation, e-readiness, and satisfaction.
