An Analysis Of Moodle-based Online Learning Barriers For English Majors In Chongqing University

With the rapid development of online learning in China, the open source platform Moodle is attracting much attention from higher education institutions. Despite the fact that research in this field is getting more and more in-depth, most studies focused on the application of Moodle with little attention paid to its effectiveness.The College of Foreign Languages of Chongqing University has introduced this platform as a teaching aid. Moodle is based on a socioconstructivist approach to learning, which emphasizes learning through a social group's collaborative construction of knowledge. Its basic functions in teaching and learning include submitting assignments, discussing topics, assessing peer's performance and receiving peer feedback. However, through the actual survey, we found that some students did not effectively take advantage of this learning platform and this Moodle teaching in the curriculum does not achieve its desired results.Aimed at better understanding the students'overall experience of Moodle-based learning and grasping the leading obstacles in this online learning comprehensively and precisely, an exploratory factor analysis survey was conducted among students in the College of Foreign Languages of Chongqing University.By analyzing the data collected from the questionnaire and interview, this article reports on the study that determined the underlying constructs that comprise student barriers to Moodle-based learning. Based on the findings and interview feedback, the author concludes that various learning barriers occurred in the platform learning. They were learner motivation, social interactions, instructor issues, academic skills, technical skills and technical support. Among these barriers, the findings revealed that the most important barrier was a lack of motivation to Moodle. Less important barriers were social interactions and instructor issues. The results also highlighted the current overall picture of Moodle-based learning. The study showed that most students were not familiar with those functions which demand autonomous or cooperative learning. It also showed in this study that the male and the female students hold more or less the same opinion in motivation, social interactions, instructor and technical support barrier. While in the barriers of academic skills and technical skills, they showed a little difference.Finally, findings of this study for Moodle-based learning are concluded, and suggestions for further studies as well as its limitations are also put forward.