Examining antecedents of tourism student's behavioral intention towards e-learning during COVID- 19 pandemic in Oman

ABSTRACT

The pandemic has drastically restructured the way education is delivered around the world. Institutions quickly turned to virtual/online due to the sudden shift away from classroom (face to face) teaching. This paper attempts to understand the impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic on tourism students of the Public Sector Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in shifting classroom education to the online and e-Learning mode of teaching and learning. The Oman government has prioritized the tourism and education sector in its 10th Five Year plan;however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, regular tourism classes, seminars, conferences, industrial visits, practical internships etc., were suspended in Oman. HEIs in Oman adopted many preventive measures to ensure that education quality and continuous teaching and learning as the government's priority sector should not suffer. Therefore, from regular teaching and learning mode, the HEIs in Oman shifted to the online and e- Learning mode of teaching and learning. The present study is empirical and utilizes primary research to gather statistical data of undergraduate tourism students from Oman's various public sector HEIs. The present study investigates tourism students' perceptions and experience about the education shift from classroom to online and e- Learning mode in general and influence of IT tools anxiety (technology acceptance), enjoyment, subjective norms, emotional life, and personal circumstances in their learning experience in particular. An online survey was administered to conduct the research and collect data. The findings of this study show that all four variables under study, i.e., perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, environment readiness, and perceived selfefficacy, positively correlate with the behavioural intention of using e-learning. Thus, for effective e-learning to happen, prepare tourism students to accept technology, provide better infrastructure and internet accessibility, and train tourism teachers as per the new paradigm. The findings of this study may serve as a base for further research on tourism students' e-learning experience models.