Understanding motivations for Internet use in distance education

Uses and Gratifications (U & G) is a communications theory paradigm developed to understand media-use motivations. This research paradigm has recently been applied to understand motivations for Internet use. Internet U & G typically orient to distinct process-based, content-based, and socially based motivations for use of the network. This study applies U & G to examine the Internet usage motivations of technology students enrolled in an Internet-enabled distance education course and finds that digital content is highly sought after by students in Internet-supported distance education classes. Distance education students are also motivated to use Internet communication resources to offset the lack of social interaction found in normal classrooms. Students´ Internet usage process motivations actually diverge into two distinct areas, related generally to searching versus browsing in the support of learning objectives.