Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Chien-hwa Wang and Cheng-ping Chen
arguments. For example, (Ryan and Deci, 2000) defined the intrinsic and extrinsic factors of
motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to individual interests that one grows in knowledge and skills,
while extrinsic motivation originates from an environment external to learning. The factors influencing
intrinsic motivation in the Web 2.0 environment may include attitude in knowledge acquisition (AKA),
expectation of professional performance (EPP), and solving practical problems (SPP). The factors
influencing extrinsic motivation may include attraction of virtual society (AVS), convenience of Internet
usability (CIU), and self-efficacy of learning (SEL). Ryan and Deci (2000) asserted that motivation can
be determined intrinsically by individuals and externally by sources due to situational variables and
environmental factors. These two orientation types significantly affect student learning performance.
The intrinsic and extrinsic orientation of learning motivation has been applied in recent research on
motivation in eLearning circumstances. For example, Law, Lee and Yu (2010) employed this
dichotomously oriented scheme as the framework for designing computer programming courses.
Hung et al (2010) also employed the same orientation as the theoretical background when defining
the five dimensional model of learning readiness for online learning.
6. Research framework
This study argues that Web 2.0 eLearning research should focus on the learner aspect rather than the
instructional design or instruction aspects. Furthermore, for Web 2.0 eLearning studies, the unique
media attributes of Web 2.0 (freedom of searching, selecting, acquiring, and creating information for
learners’ own purposes) should be considered and the effects of specific learner characteristics within
a Web 2.0 environment should be examined. Recent Web 2.0 eLearning studies tended to focus on
developing learner control strategies and testing their effectiveness. However, these learner control
studies did not consider the effects of Web 2.0 learner characteristics. Fortunately, some dimensions
of the learner characteristics of online learning have been identified. Among these characteristics, this
study considers SDLR to be the important factor influencing Web 2.0 learning. In summation of the
literature reviewed above, this study speculates that SDLR is positively related to learners’ intrinsic
and extrinsic motivations of Web 2.0 learning. Furthermore, we also speculate that learners’ Internet
experience affects self-directed learning readiness, since research evidence has shown that Internet
experience influences on the learners’ intention to utilize the Internet, and the level of web
experiences play a significant role on the intention to use a particular Internet environment (Alenezi,
Abdul Karim, and Veloo, 2010; Fusilier and Durlabhji, 2005). The main research hypotheses of this
study are as follows:
H1: Internet experience affects SDLR
H1.1: Internet experience affects overall SDLR
H1.2: Internet experience affects each subcategory of SDLR
H2: There is a relationship between SDLR and learning motivation
H2.1: There is a relationship between overall SDLR and overall learning motivation
H2.2: There are relationships between each subcategory of SDLR and each factor of learning
motivation
7. Methodology
A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from college students in Taipei City, Taiwan. All
subjects of the study are frequent users of a Web 2.0 knowledge-sharing site widely used by college
students. The data collected were analysed statistically and the research hypotheses were tested.
Figure 1 shows the research framework of the study.
7.1 The instrument
The SDLR and learning motivation questionnaire was designed according to the research framework
and comprised three parts: the demographic information, the SDLRS, and the learning motivation
inventory. The demographic data included gender, college grade, learning domain, Internet
experience, and prior knowledge. The SDLRS modified from Teng (1995) had four factors: effective
learning, learning motivation, independent learning, and creative learning. Finally, the learning
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