Current Use of WBI and Various Aspects of Distance Education in Saudi Arabian Institutions - Literature review Example

Al Balawi (2007) also studied the current use of WBI in Saudi Arabian institutions as well as the factors that facilitate or impede decisions by faculty members to partake or not partake in WBI. The study by Al Balawi (2007) was based on a survey research design by Pinsonneault and Kraemer (1992) and was used to gather information relating to the attributes of the faculty and the impact of those characteristics on participation of faculty members in coming up with WBI. The study also evaluated the incentives and barriers to the use of WBI, attitudes of members of faculty, and the demographic information of participants. Al Balawi’s (2007) research is consistent with the attributes of survey research design as outlined by Pinsonneault and Kraemer (1992). According to Pinsonneault and Kraemer (1992), survey implies “gathering information about the characteristics, actions, or opinions of a large group of people, referred to as a population” (p. 5). There are also various attributes of survey research that make the research design consistent with the objectives of Al Balawi’s (2007) research and the objectives of the current (proposed) research. These characteristics are outlined by Pinsonneault and Kraemer (1992) as follows. To start with, the aim of survey is to generate quantitative descriptions of various features of the population being investigated. A survey study may fundamentally concern itself either with connections between variables or with the findings of a project in a descriptive manner to a predefined population. Also worth noting is the point that survey research is quantitative in nature and requires standardised data from and/or about the subjects under study. Secondly, the main technique of collecting information in a survey research design is by asking the research participants predetermined questions. The answers provided by the participants, which might refer to the participants themselves or to some other element of analysis, form the data to be analysed. Thirdly, the information that is collected in a research reflects only a small part of the study population (the sample), but it is gathered in such a manner that the results can be generalised to the population (Pinsonneault & Kraemer, 1992). The study by Al Balawi (2007) was also a replication of another study by Huang (2003) that was conducted in Taiwan. The aim of the study by Huang was to examine the factors that faculty members of higher education institutions in Taiwan are concerned with when their institutions want to develop web-based courses. The study by Huang also used a survey approach to explore and explain the factors which may affect the involvement of faculty in WBI and identified the perceptions of faculty toward creating web-based courses. Al Balawi (2007) used a survey research design because of the need to gather data to test research hypotheses and to offer answers to the research questions by examining the perceptions and attitudes of the participating faculty members in regard to various aspects of distance education. The study also involved gathering information by asking participants “structured and predefined questions” (p. 46), which is a common approach of collecting data in survey research as explained above. The study setting for Al Balawi’s (2007) research was three Saudi Arabian universities: King Saud University in Riyadh, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, and King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. These three universities were selected because they were founded earlier compared to other universities in KSA, and each one of them had started implementing distance learning at the time of the study. The sample was derived from the population of faculty that taught in the summer 2006 semester. Ten percent of the total population of faculty in each of the three universities was taken, thus forming a sample of 531 participants from a population of 5312 faculty members. The sample was selected randomly by choosing every tenth member (i.e. 10th, 20th, 30th...) of faculty from the faculty lists that were provided by the three universities. A pilot study had also been conducted with 30 faculty members from King Saud University, although these members did not participate in the actual study (Al Balawi, 2007). The proposed research will adopt a different approach in sampling in that it will be purposive, targeting only female academic staff who are aware of the presence of LMS in the two selected universities as outlined earlier. The actual survey instrument used by Al Balawi (2007) was developed by Cherepski (2000), who used it to examine factors that promoted or deterred faculty involvement in web-based teaching. This instrument was modified by Huang (2003) in the study noted above (see Huang (2003) and Cherepski (2000) for more details). Al Balawi (2007) modified Huang’s instrument to include 48 items that were categorised into four sections as follows. The first section was concerned with basic demographic details and WBI questions in general. The second section comprised questions related to factors that hinder the participation of faculty in WBI while the third section inquired about factors that promote the participation of faculty members in WBI. Finally, the fourth section had statements related to the attitudes of faculty members towards the importance of WBI (Al Balawi, 2007). In this research, there is a new section about opinions regarding Blackboard. The proposed study extends Al Balawi’s research to focus specifically on female academics and provides additional data via interviews, a gap in the research mentioned above. While Al Balawi focused on the factors that promote or impede staff participation in WBI and the features of faculty that determine whether they participate in the development of WBI or not, the proposed research seek to go further and investigate whether and how academic staff actually engage the use of LMS . Therefore, questions will be formulated to determine the various ways in which university academic staff use LMS as well as their experiences regarding the use of different types of elearning systems. The research will also go further to investigate how female academic staff participate in the use of elearning technologies. Along this line, questions will be formulated to determine how female academic staff engage with elearning and the reasons why there are fewer female academic staff using WBI than males as suggested by Al Balawi (2007). ******************************* 3.#.# Validity Validity refers to the extent to which a research measuring instrument can measure what it is intended to measure (Paler-Calmorin & Calmorin, 2007). Gray (2009) notes that “to ensure validity, a research instrument must measure what it was intended to measure” (p. 155). This means that the measuring instrument (in the case of this research the survey questionnaire and the interview) must measure the actual issues that the research is intended to investigate. There are seven types of validity: “internal, external, criterion, construct, content, predictive and statistical validity” (Gray, 2009, p. 155). Internal validity refers to the correlation questions (that is cause and effect) and to the level to which causal conclusions can be made. External validity refers to the degree to which it is possible to generalise the data that is collected to a bigger population or setting. Criterion validity implies comparison of the responses in a research with accepted measures of the concept under investigation. Construct validity concerns itself with measuring abstract concepts and attributes, for instance ability, attitude, knowledge and so forth. Content validity is concerned with validating the content of a research, which means creating a link “between what is taught and what is tested” (Gray, 2009, p. 157). Predictive validity shows how well a research can predict a future phenomenon. Finally, statistical validity is the level to which a study makes use of an appropriate design as well as statistical methods (Gray, 2009). The proposed research meets all the described forms of validity because of the nature of questions in the survey questionnaire and the interview, the use of a research design that has used in previous studies, ability to compare the findings with past study findings, the use of a mixed approach to collect information, the use of a considerably large sample from two universities, and because information will be obtained from a sample selected purposively. 3.#.# Reliability Reliability refers to “the extent to which a research instrument is dependable, consistent, and stable” (Paler-Calmorin & Calmorin, 2007, p. 55). Cronbach’s (1951) coefficient will be used to measure the reliability of the survey questionnaire and interview schedule in the same way as used by Al Balawi (2007). This coefficient is one of the tools that are most commonly used in measuring the internal consistency of research instruments (Cronbach, 1951). A pilot test will also be conducted before the actual study. 3.#.# Credibility Credibility of a research answers the question of how congruent the findings of the research are with the reality (Shenton, 2004). That is, the findings need to reflect closely what is happening in the wider population. This can then make the findings more trustworthy. To ensure credibility, there is need to take steps “that can help with the task of persuading readers of the research that the data are reasonably likely to be accurate and appropriate” (Denscombe, 2007, p. 297). These steps do not offer a guarantee, since none are available. However, they offer reassurances that the data obtained have been produced and verified in accordance with good practice. They include triangulation (use of data obtained using various instruments to compare and contrast the findings), respondent validation (going back to the participants with the data after the study to check the validity of the findings) and use of grounded data (mostly applicable in qualitative research, where the researcher spends a lot of time in the field and interacts with the participants, thus scrutinising their behaviour) (Denscombe, 2007). In the proposed research, triangulation will be used, where data from the survey questionnaire will be compared and contrasted with findings of the interview. Also, follow-up interviews will be done to clarify issues identified in the survey as discussed above and will act as a form of respondent validation. 3.#.# Transferability Transferability is like external validity since it is concerned with the extent to which the findings of a given research can be applied in other contexts with other respondents from the perspective of the reader of the findings (Lodico, Spaulding & Voegtle, 2010).Transferability is evaluated by “looking at the richness of the descriptions included in the study as well as the amount of detail provided by about the context in which the study occurred” (Lodico et al. 2010, n.pag). Since the reader is the person who must assess transferability, “richly detailed or thick descriptions enable the reader to make judgements about the similarity of participants... and other characteristics of the research site and the reader’s own site” (Lodico et al. 2010, n.pag). Transferability is not concerned with whether the study included a representative sample; rather, it is about “how well the study has made it possible for readers to decide whether similar processes will work” in their own settings (Lodico et al. 2010, n.pag). In this study, an effort to ensure transferability has been made by using study approaches that have been used in the past in similar studies by researchers such as Al Balawi (2007), Huang (2003), and Cherepski (2000). This shows that a related study can still be conducted in the future. 3.#.# Confirmability Confirmability implies that “the researcher has determined the accuracy or credibility of the findings through specific strategies” (Stoner, 2010, p. 28). Confirmability can be attained through respondent validation, triangulation, and use of strong data collection methods among other strategies (Stoner, 2010). In the proposed study, triangulation and respondent validation will be used as explained above. In addition, the use of interview acts as a strong method of data collection since the interview will be conducted when the researcher is alone with the respondent, and this is one of the strong data collection methods as noted by Stoner (2010). 3.# Ethical Considerations I requested and was granted ethical approval to use human subjects in the research from the Design and Social Context College Human Ethics Advisory Network, which is a sub-committee of the RMIT Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) at RMIT University, located in Melbourne, Victoria. I also requested for permission to conduct the study at the two universities (King Saud University and Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University). Both universities have granted me permission to carry out the survey and conduct interviews with members of their academic staff. Read More

The study setting for Al Balawi’s (2007) research was three Saudi Arabian universities: King Saud University in Riyadh, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, and King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. These three universities were selected because they were founded earlier compared to other universities in KSA, and each one of them had started implementing distance learning at the time of the study. The sample was derived from the population of faculty that taught in the summer 2006 semester.

Ten percent of the total population of faculty in each of the three universities was taken, thus forming a sample of 531 participants from a population of 5312 faculty members. The sample was selected randomly by choosing every tenth member (i.e. 10th, 20th, 30th.) of faculty from the faculty lists that were provided by the three universities. A pilot study had also been conducted with 30 faculty members from King Saud University, although these members did not participate in the actual study (Al Balawi, 2007).

The proposed research will adopt a different approach in sampling in that it will be purposive, targeting only female academic staff who are aware of the presence of LMS in the two selected universities as outlined earlier. The actual survey instrument used by Al Balawi (2007) was developed by Cherepski (2000), who used it to examine factors that promoted or deterred faculty involvement in web-based teaching. This instrument was modified by Huang (2003) in the study noted above (see Huang (2003) and Cherepski (2000) for more details).

Al Balawi (2007) modified Huang’s instrument to include 48 items that were categorised into four sections as follows. The first section was concerned with basic demographic details and WBI questions in general. The second section comprised questions related to factors that hinder the participation of faculty in WBI while the third section inquired about factors that promote the participation of faculty members in WBI. Finally, the fourth section had statements related to the attitudes of faculty members towards the importance of WBI (Al Balawi, 2007).

In this research, there is a new section about opinions regarding Blackboard. The proposed study extends Al Balawi’s research to focus specifically on female academics and provides additional data via interviews, a gap in the research mentioned above. While Al Balawi focused on the factors that promote or impede staff participation in WBI and the features of faculty that determine whether they participate in the development of WBI or not, the proposed research seek to go further and investigate whether and how academic staff actually engage the use of LMS .

Therefore, questions will be formulated to determine the various ways in which university academic staff use LMS as well as their experiences regarding the use of different types of elearning systems. The research will also go further to investigate how female academic staff participate in the use of elearning technologies. Along this line, questions will be formulated to determine how female academic staff engage with elearning and the reasons why there are fewer female academic staff using WBI than males as suggested by Al Balawi (2007).

******************************* 3.#.# Validity Validity refers to the extent to which a research measuring instrument can measure what it is intended to measure (Paler-Calmorin & Calmorin, 2007). Gray (2009) notes that “to ensure validity, a research instrument must measure what it was intended to measure” (p. 155). This means that the measuring instrument (in the case of this research the survey questionnaire and the interview) must measure the actual issues that the research is intended to investigate.

There are seven types of validity: “internal, external, criterion, construct, content, predictive and statistical validity” (Gray, 2009, p. 155). Internal validity refers to the correlation questions (that is cause and effect) and to the level to which causal conclusions can be made.

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