Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have emerged as the one of the most-researched trends in the field of open distance education. Previous studies have indicated that most of the researches on MOOCs that have been conducted are based in North America and Europe which reveal findings from the Western perspective. This causes a lack of studies that contribute in terms of an Eastern perspective on the acceptance and usage of MOOCs. Thus, this study investigates a recent national MOOC initiative via collaboration of the Malaysia Ministry of Education with four public universities where the user acceptance of MOOCs in one of the public universities is studied. Data was collected via an online survey distributed to the users of the MOOC course consisting of over 1000 students. Findings were obtained based on the aspects of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model, which are: (i) performance expectancy; (ii) effort expectancy; (iii) attitude; (iv) social influence; (v) facilitating conditions; (vi) self-efficacy; (vii) behavioral attention; and (viii) anxiety. Findings revealed that students perceive that the learning using MOOCs have a positive effect on their performance, effort and attitude during learning. Interestingly, findings also indicated that students faced anxiety and self-efficacy issues when learning with MOOCs. The findings of this study could be useful for understanding MOOCs from a South East Asian perspective as well as in development of MOOCs that are tailored to suit the requirements and needs for MOOCs users in this region.
