A study on the associations among the factors influencing digital education with reference to Indian higher education

The involvement of technology in the education domain has transformed the traditional system in many countries. The need was realized when 300 million students in India itself were pushed to move from traditional to various digital education platforms during the pandemic. There has been an essential emphasis given to the promotion of digital based education for achieving the aim of Digital India and National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Considering the vision, this research work is an attempt to articulate such factors affecting the attainment of digital education based on previous researches and opinions of domain experts in this area through Nominal Group Technique (NGT). ISM based hierarchical model along with MICMAC were used to analyze the interactions among identified factors. The ISM results have put technology awareness, course & subject choice, digital literacy, geographical location, interactivity, cyber security and training for handling ICT, as the most crucial factors driving the others. The MICMAC results indicate geographical location as the most driving factor and switching behaviour as the most dependent factor. The model will assist to understand how factors work in hierarchy with inter-relationships and thus provide su pport to policy planners and institutions in planning the effective implementation.