Research Project Information
(Non-Research University in Malaysia)

You are invited to take part voluntarily in research. This research is about finding out the factors that influence the online learning effectiveness of students in postgraduate courses in five Malaysian Research Universities. Approximately 500 university students will involve in this study.

The purpose of this study is to develop an Online Learning Effectiveness Model based on the Community of Inquiry Framework for Malaysian Higher Education.

Your participation in this study is expected to take about a total of 20 minutes to answer all the questions in two questionnaires. The first questionnaire will take about 15 minutes to complete. The second questionnaire will take about 5 minutes to complete.

You need to meet ALL the following criteria to be eligible to participate in this study:

1. You are currently an active postgraduate student (Undergraduate, Master’s or Doctorate) but NOT registered with any of the following Malaysian Public Research Universities:

• Universiti Malaya
• Universiti Sains Malaysia
• Universiti Putra Malaysia
• Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
• Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

2. You have taken at least one fully online or blended (partially online) course in the past six months.  The online course usually lasts for a semester which is required to fulfil the requirement for the award of your multi-year degree programme. 

3. If you are in the progress of attending the course, you must have completed at least three quarter (75%) of your course based on the academic calendar.

4. You must possess a valid formal university email address.

There is no foreseeable physical and psychological risk associated with your participation in this study. Your participation involves answering web surveys from your mobile device or computer. The questions in the questionnaire are related to your experience on the online/blended.

The questionnaire does not contain any personal or community sensitive questions. The questions are related to your satisfaction, learning experience and outcome regarding one of the online/blended postgraduate courses of your choice. The course typically lasts only one semester in your degree programme.

Data collected are strictly protected in SSL encrypted database and accessible only to the researchers with passwords. Privacy of participants is assured because there will be no personally identifiable information collected in the questionnaire. Only anonymous data will be used in analysis and reporting. Data collected will be archived in a password protected file after the study objectives have been achieved. The researchers may use the archival data to support future studies within five years upon completion of this study. The data will be erased permanently after a ten year retention period required by the journal publisher.

This study is done solely for academic and scholarly purposes. There is no plan to use the findings of this study in developing any commercial products. Researchers neither receive any form of commercial incentives nor will derive any form of financial benefit from this study.

Your taking part in this study is entirely voluntary. You may refuse to take part in the survey, or you may stop your participation in the study at any time, without any penalty or loss of benefits which you entitled. Your participation also may be blocked by the research team without your consent if in any form you have violated the study eligibility criteria.

Your participation will contribute to the study finding, which may benefit the future Malaysian higher education community in driving the improvement of online teaching and learning practices.

You will receive a token of appreciation in the form of a limited period of free access to digital learning materials with commercial value.

Participants shall not be informed about the findings of this study

This project has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (JEPeM) of USM. Reference: USM/JEPeM/20100525.

If you have any question about this study or your rights, please contact or fill in the contact form:

Choo Teng Seng
Institute Penyelidikan Pendidikan Tinggi Negara
Bayan Lepas, Penang
Email: tengseng@student.usm.my
Mobile Phone: 013-3503543

If you have any questions regarding the Ethical Approval or any issue/problem related to this study, please contact:

Miss Nor Amira Khurshid Ahmed
Secretariat of Human Research Ethics Committee USM
Research Creativity & Management Office (RCMO)
USM Main Campus, Penang
Tel. No. : 04-6536537
Email: noramira@usm.my

Your information will be kept confidential by the researchers and will not be made publicly available unless disclosure is required by law. Data obtained from this study that does not identify you individually will be published for knowledge purposes.

Your original records may be reviewed by the researcher, the Ethical Review Board for this study, and regulatory authorities to verify the study procedures and/or data. Your information may be held and processed on a computer. Only research team members are authorized to access your data.

If you do not wish to grant the right for any future use of the data collected from your submission, please contact the principal investigator.

By agreeing on the terms in the section of participant consent below, you authorize the record review, information storage and data process described above.