How do university students' personalities affect their engagement, satisfaction, and stickiness toward e-learning post-pandemic?: Evidence from Australia

The COVID-19 pandemic has enhanced the role of e-learning systems in learning and teaching activities for both students and academics around the world. Much research has been conducted on the importance of learners' personality traits in their acceptance of e-learning services. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research on the stickiness of learning for accessing learners' readiness to continue using and prolong the duration of their learning on online platforms post-pandemic. Thus, this paper aims to provide an integrated framework for exploring the role played by the big five personality traits in determining the extent of students' engagement in learning, the level of student satisfaction with the e-learning process, and the stickiness of e-learning platforms. The sample data for this study were collected via a questionnaire survey among students enrolled in three higher education providers in Australia. A total of 403 qualified samples were analyzed in this study using covariance based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). The study shows that agreeableness and conscientiousness significantly increased the level of students’ learning engagement, while students’ satisfaction was affected by their extroversion and agreeableness. The research also shows the significant effect of students’ learning engagement on their satisfaction, leading to a higher level of stickiness towards e-learning. The findings can be used as a foundation for future research into user behavior of education technologies and enterprise systems. This study provides useful insights for e-learning providers and academics to actively pursue better e-learning designs for promoting and delivering high-quality education.