The Challenge of Four-Status Model of eLearning: Principles Toward a New Understanding for Healthcare Professionals

This paper presents the critical reviews of the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning for healthcare professionals. The impact of learning on healthcare professionals is explored; the focus is on healthcare professionals in rural Thailand. Literature suggests that there are four main topics related to the drivers and barriers in eLearning, they are: Infrastructure; Finance; Policies; and Culture (IF-PC). IF-PC model of barriers and drivers of eLearning is being adopted as a template for the design of all eLearning, to the exclusion of other ideas. Using a case study approach the research, completed in 2006, had two phases. A questionnaire was distributed to a group healthcare professional student to gain information with questions adapted from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Phase 2 employed three strands of data collection: interviews, a group discussions, and observation were employed to help with the understanding of the problems in greater depth. Data was analysed using a form of pattern matching. An evaluation of the adoption of eLearning in Thailand is presented along with a discussion on the findings. It appears that alternative models of eLearning cannot be disregarded. This has interesting consequences for the implementation of eLearning especially in developing countries