ADULT LEARNING ON THE INTERNET: ENGAGING THE eBAY AUCTION PROCESS

Abstract

The current revolution of the Information Age is rapidly changing the complexion of many personal and corporate societies. This revolution is changing the methods people use to communicate with each other, research new information, solve problems, and transact business. The purpose of this study was to describe the learning strategies that adults use in learning to engage in the eBay auction process. The study used the following research questions: (a) what are the identified learning strategy preferences of adult learners using eBay, (b) how do the learning strategy preferences of eBay users compare to the norms for ATLAS, and (c) how do eBay users describe their learning processes related to getting started on eBay, participating in eBay activities,communicating on eBay, learning through eBay, and experiencing eBay? This study used a descriptive design along with the information and data gathering advantages of the Internet to collect data about how adults learn using the Internet. An online questionnaire which featured 19 qualitative questions and 11 quantitative Likert scale items was used to determine the perceptions of eBay participants. Assessing The Learning Strategies of AdultS (ATLAS) instrument was imbedded within the online questionnaire to determine the preferred strategies of eBay users. The study involved a representative sample of 380 eBay users which was identified by electronically downloading the e-mail addresses of participants in completed auctions. The sample was stratified by the 13 categories of items listed on eBay. Within each of these categories, high-volume completed auctions were selected in which the final sale price was under $10, between $11 and $100, and over $100.