Instrument

A composite web-based Japanese language instrument was used. The Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) (Gosling et al. 2003) is a reliable and economical measure of the five-factor model personality traits. The TIPI shows adequate levels of convergence, test-retest reliability, predicted correlation patterns and convergence between observed and self-rated outcomes (see Gosling et al. 2003). The TIPI presents users with 10 pairs of character descriptors introduced by the statement “I see myself as…”. Respondents are required to score each pair of descriptors on a scale of 1 “disagree strongly” to 7 “agree strongly”. The average score of each pair is then calculated after reverse-scored items are recoded. A single composite score for each of the five-factor model personality traits is thereby created. The TIPI has been translated into several languages and validated in different cultural contexts. The Japanese version (TIPI-J) was developed Oshio et al. (2012) was used in the current study and has most recently been validated by Kawamoto et al. (2015) and Iwasa and Yoshida (2018).

A measure of online academic scale efficacy was created from the self-efficacy scale used in the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich and De Groot 1990). The scale was edited to reference the online learning environment and consisted of three items regarding comparative perceptions of student status, study skills and subject knowledge. Technology acceptance was measured with six items pertaining to the perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of Moodle. These were modified from previous TAM studies (e.g. Ngai et al. 2007; Yeou 2016). Three items pertaining to attitude were derived from Ajzen and Fishbein (1980). All items were assessed on a seven-point scale from 1 “disagree strongly” to 7 “agree strongly”. In order to ascertain actual Moodle usage across the course, and as an experimental variable, Moodle data logs were extracted for each student in relation to the number of times the course was viewed and the number of times a post was made within one of the task forums or discussions. Within educational studies log data has been used to link learner behavior to performance in online course persistence (Morris et al. 2005) and learning management system achievement (You 2016) although in general log data has been underutilized (Romero et al. 2008). The course achievement measure was scaled from the raw standardized grade awarded at the end of the asynchronous course. The grades were reflective of student performance on various tasks, activities and discussions spread across a 15-week semester. The grades given were standardized and agreed upon by three instructors. Therefore, the course achievement measure used in the current study stands as and the official university record for each individual student.