Award Winners for Volume 18
University Students’ Perceptions of e-Learning Barriers in Morocco: A Qualitative Exploratory Study
This article examines the barriers and factors influencing students’ resistance to the continued use of e-learning. The study draws on the perceptions and experiences of fifteen students and five teachers from the Polydisciplinary Faculty of Taroudant city in Morocco and adopts a qualitative approach, specifically, an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), to explore the participants’ lived experiences. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect primary data and understand students’ perspectives on barriers and obstacles to the adoption of e-learning in higher education. The results are categorized into two main themes: barriers to e-learning adoption and improvements in adoption and acceptance. Students frequently cite usage, tradition, value, and individual barriers as the main obstacles to e-learning adoption. The practical implications of this study highlight the untapped potential of e-learning in Morocco. Higher education institutions can benefit from understanding the perspectives of students and teachers to improve their systems and attract and retain national and international students.
As higher education institutions continue to invest in digital transformation, understanding why students embrace or resist e-learning has become increasingly important. While much of the existing research has focused on technology adoption, comparatively less attention has been devoted to understanding the factors that hinder or delay the acceptance of online education, particularly in developing-country contexts.
This article contributes to addressing that gap by exploring the perceptions and lived experiences of Moroccan university students and faculty members regarding e-learning barriers. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and drawing on Innovation Resistance Theory (Ram and Sheth, 1989), the study identifies six categories of barriers to e-learning adoption. Ranked by intensity, usage barriers driven by connectivity deficits and platform complexity emerged as the most prominent, followed by tradition barriers rooted in deeply embedded cultural learning habits, value barriers related to course content and instructor quality, and individual barriers linked to self-regulation difficulties. Image and risk barriers, while present, were the least prominent among participants.
Beyond identifying and ranking these barriers, the study highlights the complex interaction between infrastructure limitations, educational culture, and learner behavior. The findings suggest that successful digital transformation in higher education cannot be achieved through technological investments alone. Universities must also address pedagogical practices, learner support mechanisms, and the socio-cultural realities that shape students’ educational experiences.
The article is particularly significant because it brings evidence from Morocco, a context that remains underrepresented in the international e-learning literature. By providing insights from a developing-country setting, the study contributes to broadening current debates on digital inclusion, educational innovation, and technology-enabled learning beyond the perspectives that have traditionally dominated the literature.
More broadly, this research reflects a growing scholarly recognition that the success of educational technologies depends not only on their technical capabilities but also on their alignment with learners’ needs, institutional environments, and cultural contexts. By advancing a context-sensitive understanding of e-learning resistance, the study contributes to a more nuanced and inclusive perspective on digital transformation in higher education and offers insights that may inform both future research and policy development across emerging and developing economies.
—Ayoub Oulamine, Anas Hattabou, Fatima El Gareh, and Arghya Ray