What Keeps Students Logging On: Satisfaction Drives eLearning Sticking Power in Iraq

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced universities worldwide into emergency online teaching, most institutions eventually returned to normal. But the question of whether students actually keep using eLearning platforms once the crisis passes has remained stubbornly unresolved, especially in developing countries where infrastructure is fragile and digital skills are unevenly distributed. A new study of 332 students at Iraqi public universities now offers one of the most detailed answers yet, and its findings challenge some long-held assumptions about what makes learners stick with educational technology. The research, published in Discover Education, shows that satisfaction, far more than social pressure or even perceived usefulness, is the engine that drives students to continue using eLearning systems.

The study, conducted by Rasha Talib Ahmed Alnaqeeb and Nasuha Lee Abdullah of Universiti Sains Malaysia, tackles a critical gap in the technology adoption literature. Most previous research has focused on why people adopt a technology in the first place, treating continued use as an afterthought. Yet adoption and continuance are fundamentally different phenomena. A student may log into a learning management system once because a professor requires it, but whether that student returns week after week depends on a complex interplay of expectations, experiences, and capabilities. In Iraq, where only about 25 percent eLearning penetration persists and fewer than 35 percent of universities had solid eLearning frameworks after the pandemic, understanding this distinction is not academic hair-splitting but a matter of educational policy.

To model continuance intention, the researchers built an integrated framework combining two of the most influential theories in information systems research. The first is the Expectation-Confirmation Model, which explains post-adoption behavior through a simple psychological mechanism: users compare their actual experience with prior expectations, and the degree of confirmation shapes both satisfaction and the perceived usefulness of the system, which together drive the decision to continue. The second is UTAUT2, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, which contributes behavioral and motivational factors such as facilitating conditions, social influence, and hedonic motivation. Crucially, the team added a third ingredient rarely tested in this context: digital literacy, the student’s own technological competence, positioned as a capability factor that could be decisive in resource-constrained environments.

The methodology was rigorous and quantitative. Using a structured questionnaire administered to students in their second year of study or above across public universities in northern, central, and southern Iraq, selected through multi-stage sampling to ensure geographical representation, the researchers collected 332 valid responses, well above the minimum of 146 calculated with statistical power analysis. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling in SmartPLS 4, a technique well suited to prediction-oriented models with multiple latent constructs and mediation pathways. Measurement quality was confirmed through convergent validity, discriminant validity via the Fornell-Larcker criterion and the Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio, and composite reliability scores all exceeding accepted thresholds.

The results paint a striking picture of what actually matters to students in this setting. Four factors significantly shaped satisfaction: facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, digital literacy, and confirmation of expectations. Hedonic motivation, the sheer enjoyment of using the platform, emerged as the strongest driver, with a path coefficient of 0.316, suggesting that engaging and pleasurable design is not a luxury but a necessity. Confirmation, the sense that the system met expectations, strongly boosted perceived usefulness as well, with a coefficient of 0.469. Satisfaction itself explained a remarkable 61 percent of the variance in the model and, in turn, exerted the strongest direct influence on continuance intention, with a coefficient of 0.403.

Just as revealing were the factors that failed to register. Social influence, the encouragement of family, friends, and peers that features prominently in Western technology acceptance studies, had no significant effect on satisfaction. Perceived usefulness, the workhorse construct of the Technology Acceptance Model, also did not significantly influence satisfaction, contradicting the original Expectation-Confirmation Model. Yet perceived usefulness did have a significant direct effect on continuance intention, with a coefficient of 0.228. This dissociation suggests that Iraqi students may keep using eLearning because it helps them complete academic tasks, even when usefulness alone does not make them happy with the experience. Satisfaction, by contrast, appears to depend on broader experiential factors such as technical support, accessibility, enjoyment, and digital capability.

The mediation analysis sharpened these insights further. Satisfaction significantly mediated the pathways from facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, digital literacy, and confirmation to continuance intention, meaning that infrastructure, enjoyment, competence, and met expectations all work through the emotional evaluation of the experience. But satisfaction did not mediate the effects of social influence or perceived usefulness. In other words, the social pressure of others neither improves the student’s experience nor translates into lasting engagement, while the instrumental value of the system operates on a separate, direct track. This pattern implies that established continuance theories may require contextual adaptation when applied in developing-country educational settings, where infrastructural instability reshapes the psychology of technology use.

The practical implications for universities and policymakers are concrete. Because facilitating conditions carry such weight, investment in reliable internet connectivity, hardware availability, and responsive technical support should be the first priority, particularly given that fragile infrastructure and system overload during exam periods frequently limit access in Iraq. Because hedonic motivation proved so powerful, institutions should develop interactive, gamified, and genuinely enjoyable course content rather than treating online platforms as mere repositories of lecture slides. Because digital literacy significantly predicted satisfaction, structured training programs for both students and lecturers are essential, especially in a country where uneven exposure to technology has left many users unfamiliar with effective platform use.

The study also carries a broader message for the global education technology community. Over 90 percent of higher education institutions in industrialized nations have adopted digital platforms such as Moodle, Google Classroom, and Microsoft Teams, yet the factors sustaining their use in wealthy, well-connected societies may not transfer cleanly to contexts where electricity stability and internet reliability cannot be taken for granted. The Iraqi case demonstrates that satisfaction-based retention models remain internationally applicable, but the specific levers that produce satisfaction differ. Where peers and perceived utility dominate in some settings, experiential and support-related factors dominate in others.

The authors acknowledge limitations, including the exclusion of first-year students and private universities, reliance on self-reported data, and a cross-sectional design that captures perceptions at a single point in time. Future research, they suggest, should explore the contextual reasons behind the non-significant effects of social influence and perceived usefulness, compare public and private institutions, and test whether digital literacy moderates the relationship between enjoyment and satisfaction. But the central finding stands firm: in resource-constrained higher education, the path to sustainable eLearning runs not through persuasion or promises of usefulness, but through building systems that are accessible, enjoyable, and matched to the real digital capabilities of the students who use them.

Subject of Research: Determinants of student continuance intention toward eLearning usage in Iraqi higher education institutions

Article Title: Determinants of continuance intention toward eLearning usage in higher education institutions

Article References: Alnaqeeb, R. T. A., & Abdullah, N. L. (2026). Determinants of continuance intention toward eLearning usage in higher education institutions. Discover Education, 5(1), Article 1165. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-026-02259-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44217-026-02259-2

Keywords: eLearning, continuance intention, higher education, digital literacy, student satisfaction, Expectation-Confirmation Model, UTAUT2, PLS-SEM, Iraq, educational technology, developing countries, technology adoption