The Study of E-learning Attitude and Behavior of the Civil Servants of Local Government in the Republic of China

[[abstract]]This research is to explore attitude and behavior of the civil servants of local government in Taiwan who are required to participate in the computer-based training. The findings have some implications for the development of the e-learning program in future. A questionnaire was conducted into a sample of 740 randomly selected from 133,428 civil servants whom served for 25 local city governments during April and May in 2008. 433 out of those responded to the survey and 4 were incomplete. Major findings of the survey are summarized as following: 1. Half of the civil servants (50.8%) who concern their engagement in e-learning are under an obligation. 56.4% engage in e-learning in the office, and 93.3% adopt on-line learning within 2 hours each time that is fulfill the minimum requirement. 2. Several web sites are often used by the civil servants, such as ‘E-learning Center of the Local Administration’, ‘Learning Net of the E Officials’, and ‘NCSI e-College’. 3. Most of the civil servants are feeling comfortable about participation in the computer-based training program. 4. The educational contents including ‘Law and Legal’ and ‘Special Topics’ are selected regularly by the civil servants, because these subject matter contents are related and relevant to their daily work. 5. 86.0% of the civil servants respond that they have been interruption during the learning process, and claim that dealing both the business and e-learning simultaneously might damage the learning outcome. 6. The attitude and behavior of civil servants towards e-learning are significantly related to each other. 7. Both the attitude and behavior are best predictors in explanation of the civil servant’s preference of e-learning. Some suggestions are highlight: 1. The authority responsible for the public servant training should deregulate the policy which concerns the stipulation of compulsory e-learning time. 2. The implementation of computer-based training program should have the potential to encourage the learner, and provide the substantive reward. 3. It should establish the mechanism to coordinate the educational practice and on-line resource in order to expand the scope of e-learning. 4. It should enhance the infrastructure of computer-based provision and pool on-line resource to supporting e-learning, especially in establishment of the bandwidth network. 5. The local government should provide somehow more exclusive learning schedule and area that might reduce the learning disturbance.