Human Factors and Ergonomics, their Effects on the Effectiveness of E-learning at Rongo University, Kenya

Human Factors and Ergonomics play a key role in the design and development of computer applications and tools. This is a multidisciplinary approach used to ensure that systems and learning environments are designed to aid in users performance. This study aimed at analyzing the human factors and ergonomics, their effects on the effectiveness of e-learning platform at Rongo University. A descriptive research methodology was used to collect and analyze the data from a sample size of 150 consisting of faculty and the students. Using stratified sampling technique from five schools, a questionnaire was the main data collection tool and data was analyzed using SPSS. It was observed that the level of e-learning platform at Rongo University is very low at less than 2 %. The study found that, psychological effects such as, motivation, individual perception, self-regulation, course content, computer literacy and lack of discipline from the e-learning students, were the major contributing factors. Student and faculty correlated significantly with each other across schools with course content being the main factor at a mean score of 8.60 for faculty and 21.40 for students. The Activity Theory has been used as a theoretical background that guided the study.