Distance education students’ readiness for online learning at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana

In the era of covid-19, it has become increasingly necessary and relevant that all higher education programmes, including distance education, adopt online education. This does not exempt the College of Distance Education (CoDE) of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana. The instructional shift would require all parties of the education system to be ready for online teaching and learning. In this study, we examined distance education students’ readiness for online learning in UCC. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to sample 700 students of CoDE-UCC. Questionnaires were administered to them in their respective study centres. Aside from frequencies and percentages, binary logistic regression was used to analyse the data. The findings of the study revealed that distance education students in CoDE-UCC were generally not ready for online learning where their readiness were found to be influenced by factors such as internet accessibility, availability of e-devices, (funds for) internet bundle, computer literacy, intentions to use e-learning in future, and perceived ease of use.