Ecuador And Spain in the Digital Era. Discovering the Motivation and Satisfaction of Online Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

The present study is focused on the digital transformation of higher education in Ecuador and Spain, and it analyses how this transformation is affecting both students and faculty members. On the one hand, this study aims to describe the motivation, satisfaction and assessment of online and face-to-face teaching of higher education students in educational degrees. On the other hand, it aims to compare the evaluation of online and face-to-face teaching between Ecuadorian and Spanish students in order to determine their educational preferences. Differences between Ecuadorian and Spanish students were analysed from a non-experimental approach, following a descriptive and inferential methodology, in which a questionnaire was administered through the Google Forms platform. The sample was constituted by 1,745 university students, of whom 72.1% were Ecuadorian and 27.9% were Spanish. The results indicate that online education presents unique challenges, such as the lack of physical interaction, the difficulty to keep the attention of the students, and the need to effectively use technological tools. The motivation and satisfaction of Ecuadorian and Spanish students vary as a function of teaching modality, with face-to-face teaching being preferred by the students. It is thus concluded that aspects such as autonomy, the search for information and the management of projects are the skills proposed to continue advancing. Our proposal is to continue to search for variables that favour subjective well-being, integrating the learning models with the social context, and advancing in didactic resources, digital pedagogies and describe the motivation, satisfaction and evaluation of new digital learning environments and face-to-face teaching of higher education students of educational degrees. To compare the evaluation of new digital learning environments and face-to-face teaching between Ecuadorian and Spanish students in order to determine their educational preferences.