Students’ Attitudes toward the Use of Technology in Online Courses

Abstract

The learning environment in 21st century schools has become the focus of attention for specialists in the educational field by equipping them with the right technologies to create an attractive and interactive learning environment. The purpose of this study was to find out university students’ attitudes toward technologies used in online courses and how employing these technologies benefit the learning environment. This paper reports the results of a quantitative research study examining university students’ attitudes toward technologies used in online courses. A total of 496 eligible students (268 male and 228 female) participated in the online survey through Social Networking Sites (SNS). This study found that, because of the complexity of the technologies used in these online courses, university students experienced difficulties using these tools and needed additional experience prior to their use in the online courses. The findings revealed that the most activities used in online courses in universities have largely focused on reading materials and online discussion forums, unlike other activities such as audio, social networking, online conferencing and games has not been widely used.