Background
The 21st century has been marked by major technological advancements due to improved technology. The education sector has not been left behind and has developed a major tool for learning commonly referred to as electronic learning (e-learning). According to Dublin (2003, p. 7), e-learning is a term not easily understood especially for those outside this industry and also within the diverse sectors where it has different meanings. E-learning has many benefits to the students using it. It produces improved performance in the coursework for higher education students in comparison with face-to-face courses (Means, 2009, para.4). It provides increased access in that knowledge can be shared across borders by many intellectuals thus allowing students to attend their courses without limitations of physical, economic, or political boundaries. It is also convenient and provides the learners with flexibility. This is because e-learning is available 24/7 thus learners can schedule themselves in the most convenient way. Finally, learners using this system of education are able to gain digital literacy skills that are important for their courses and professions. For the quality learning process, e-learning has been developed to use different approaches to ease the process of learning. The common approaches used include the following; Computer-Based Learning (CBL) which refers to the use of computers for teaching purposes, the second is Computer-Based Trainings (CBT) which are learning activities that are available through the use of computers or other handheld devices. The resources for learning are presented in a linear style. They are used just the same as reading an online book or journal. CBTs have more benefits than traditional classroom contexts since it incorporates visual aids in learning hence increasing understanding. The third approach to e-learning involves the use of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). This has greatly improved learning as modern ICT is applied and multiple users can be invited at the same time.
Jordan has a population of six million and is one of the small countries in the Arab world. It has limited natural resources in comparison to the other neighboring countries. Education has for long been acknowledged as a tool for national development leading to its development at all levels. The Jordanian government undertook major reforms to boost economic development by maximimizing utilisation of human capital through educating its citizens (Dirani, & Yoon,2009, para 5). This has led to development of ODL in its universities to cater for the growing demand for tertiary education.
E-learning is a novel idea in most of the Arab world and it has come with its benefits and challenges (Al-Jaghoub, 2009, p.2). Many universities in Jordan are situated in the metropolitan areas due to limitation of accessibility in the rural parts where access to higher education is often hindered. With this limitations of accessibility and the ever increasing demand for higher education in Jordan, e-learning has provided the answer for those keen on further pursuing their education. According to Knowles’ theory of adult learning, e-learning gives the learners a better control of their education through timing themselves and choosing the places where they think is most convinient to them as regards their other commitments in life (Knowles, 1984, p.20). Most universities in the Arab region set out their own policies, curriculum and different areas of specializations according to what each countries needs and not considering cross-national needs. As noted by Jamlan (1985, p.37), this has hindered the development of Open Distance Learning (ODL). The growth of e-learning has also been faced by major challenges in these countries. These challenges includes the following; in some universities there is limited technological infrastructure to support e-learning effectively, there are negative perceptions by the students and the society at large on online degrees and the learning process and also the problem of frequent unstability in our socio-political environments that hinder development. Studies carried out on the process of e-learning reveals that there is need for coordinated efforts between the different players. These are the learners, the university structure which must be strong and the e-learning instructors (Owen & Demb, 2004, p. 660). For an effective e-learning program that is in tandem with other nations, there is need for strong policies that are supportive to the process and strong institutional changes to encompass and harbour e-learning process (Bailey, 1999, p. 14).
Research proposal and research questions
The following research intends to assess the status of e-learning on the education system of Jordan. It will focus on effectiveness and the challenges or the obstruction e-learning faces during its day to day use in Jordan. The title of this research paper is Exploring Online Learning in Jordan Universities: Effectiveness and Obstruction. The research questions for the study will be as follows:
- Is e-learning an effective system of learning in Jordanian Universities?
- What challenges/obstruction has e-learning faced during its implentation in Jordan universities?.
- What are the personal opinions of the students and the instructors on the best way to improve e-learning process so as to minimise the challenges faced?
Due to the rising number of distance learning students across Jordan, e-learning has become handy to fill the gap in higher education and to decongest the learning institutions. There is little literature existing that takles the issue of effectiveness and challenges met along the way in implementing e-learning. Therefore, to fill this knowledge gap this research will answer the questions needed and provide improvement strategies to e-learning. The research questions selected covers the main factors of the title of the research hence their selection.
Case setting and context
As previously mentioned, Jordan has limited natural resources, unlike other countries in the Arab world; this led to the country to rely much on its human resources to support economic growth. The government was encouraged to develop the ICT sector after the throne of King Abdullah ii in 1999. The people of Jordan have been encouraged to embrace education as a compensatory measure to the lack of natural resources. According to the UNDP report (2008, p. 10), Jordan is one of the countries in the world with the highest rates of adult literacy scoring a 91.1% adult literacy rate in the year 2007/2007. Many universities have been established both public and private to cater for the high number of students seeking higher education in Jordan and its environs. Many universities have embraced the use of ICT and e-learning to increase coverage and reduce competition.
Al-Ahliyya Amman University (AAU) is one of the first and leading private universities in Jordan and is located in Amman. Professor Maher Salim is the president of this university which was founded in 1990. It is organised into seven faculties which helps it meet its overall objectives. These faculties are; faculty of engineering, nursing, pharmacy and medical sciences, information technology, arts and human sciences, law and finally faculty of finance and administrative sciences. It follows the credit-hour system where learning takes place in two semesters yearly and each semester is 16 weeks. E-learning project commenced its implementation in 2006 with its president being its champion. E-learning program at AAU aims at offering online degrees, accessing new markets across nations, offering academic certificates in the majors that the university is offering in its faculties, and make collaborations with other universities. It also aims at sharing of academic knowledge between various members of staff at the university and hence enriching the educational process by enriching both the staff and students with skills relevant to serve the community better. In laying out and implementation of e-learning at AAU, the university coordinated with experts whose role was to train its staff and offer technical advice until success is achieved. AAU is very active in provision of higher education in Jordan and its environs which include other countries like Saudi Arabia (Georgina, & Olson, 2007, p. 5).. Its population consists of both genders although men are slightly higher compared to the females. For this research to produce credible results, AAU provides the best settings. By the fact that it was the first private university in Jordan and also among the first to start implementation of e-learning adds up to the context of this study. Finally AAU is also a fully accredited university by the Council of Higher Education of Jordan and it enjoys wide recognition from both the arab world and internationally. It also enjoys the prestige of being a member of the renowned Association of Arab Universities (Kelly, Ponton, & Rovai,2007, p. 92). This attributes clearly places AAU as one of the best place to carry out this research since the data obtained will cover the views from an accredited institution, staff and students who are mixed in sexes and citizenly.
Study design and study population
A qualitative design approach will be utilised in this research. This is due to the ability of qualitative researches to have an in-depth understanding of various human attributes and analysing the various reasons that help in defining this attributes (Yin, 1994, p. 23). This method is also cheap in terms of resources used since smaller and focused samples are utilised for data collection to investigate the whys and how of choicing a certain decision. A case study of AAU staff and students’ perception on e-learning majoring on its effectiveness and the various obstructions it faces will be carried out. The data will be generalised to give the impression of the status of e-learning in Jordan Universities. The study population will consist of the university president, 5 staff members who are student instructors on e-learning program and a total of 112 students. The students will be selected randomly to ensure each has an equal opportunity of participating in the study but after meeting the following criteria; in each year of study four respondents will be selected, two from each gender. Then this will apply to all the seven faculties in the university. By so doing it ensures all interests are represented in the study and selection bias is minimised. The AAU president will give a background on the laying out of e-learning at the university and the various administrative challenges that may have been encountered during the implentation stages. The instructors are expected to be very resourceful for this study since they handle e-learning implementation at the university. They will give provide information on how effective e-learning has been since its enrollment and the major challenges it has faced. They will also give personal views of how best they think the program can be improved in order to minimise the challenges that they face. Finally, the students are instrumental in providing a personal judgement on how effective they think e-learning is in comparison to the traditional classroom learning. They will also provide information about the challenges they encounter on accessing information during the learning process using e-learning technology.
Method
The research will utilize qualitative data collection approaches on the respondents. The following data collection tools will be employed; interviews using structured questionnaires, focused group discussions and observation. The president will be interviewed to give background details about the laying out of e-learning at AAU, the challenges that might have been encountered and how they were able to cope with these challenges. He will give the effects e-learning has in boosting higher education learning and in meeting with the ever increasing demand for tertiary education. The president will also be interviewed to provide information on the future prospects of e-learning program outling the developments expected to be achieved. The second interview will involve the student instructors on e-learning. Since they are incharge in implementation they are a great resource and will be sought to give information on the effects e-learning has achieved since it was rolled at AAU. They are also in contact with the students and hence have direct contact with the students. This gives them a better position of understanding the difficulties that the students encounter on accessing learning materials online. Focused group discussions will be formed by the students each group being represented by each academic year and each faculty at the university. The groups will tackle questions on what they think are the effects that has come with e-learning and how best it has made the learning process easier. Personal views will be sought and recorded and the groups point of view. This will give information on the students’ perceptions of the program, their attitudes towards e-learning and their opinions about the learning process via e-learning. Finally, the researcher will have an opportunity to personally observe the e-learning process by visiting the various resources available at the university. This will be of importance in forming a personal informed opinion and will be used to recommend various ways of improving the program. All interviews will be conducted on one to one basis and this helps the researcher to judge the degree of truthfullness of the information given and thus increasuing the credibility of the research. The questionnaires will be filled by the researcher and will give a guide to the interview. Also the guidelines provided for interview questions and incoorporating data sources (triangulation) from different areas were also used (Merriam, 1998, p.20).
Data collection and analysis
The interviews conducted will provide the researcher with information on the adminisrative structure employed in e-learning, the whole process in steps by step flow hence bringing out the effects of the program on learning in Jordan. The focused groups discussion provides the personal opinions of the students and group opinions of the program. the researcher after observing the process will form an opinion about the program and this will be important as an analysis tool of qualitative data. The impression gained will be reported in quantitative form hence giving an impression of effectiveness of the program. The data collected through interviews and focused group discussions will be coded and analysed using quantitative methods. Frequency tables and graphs on respondents perceptions about the program will be employed (Berg, 1998,p.60). Finally, pie charts showing the various obstacles to e-learning will be utilised. This techniques of data analysis are simple and give a pictorial representation of data hence easily understood and interpreted. They are used in this research so as to quantify the data and give a clear picture on the effectiveness and the obstructions that are faced by e-learning in Jordan Universities.
Management of data
To collect data that is viable and credible, this research is expected to last for about three months. The first month will involve carrying out a pilot study in a different university with the same settings. This will enable test of the collection tools for their effectiness and relevance for this study. The second month will involve organising for the resources needed for the study and visiting AAU for orientation and to get familiarised with the various respondents to the study. The final month is data collection, analysis and presentation. Various limitations are expected to be encountered during the research period. These includes the following; lack of enough resources, language barriers and uncooperative respondents. To minimise these, sponsoring of the research will be sought from interested parties, use of interpretors in situations when language barrier is encountered and finally informing the respondents the expeced benefits from the research and using coercive language to increase their cooperation. Various measures will be taken to minimise the bias expected. For example, the respondents will be picked randomly to ensure equal chances for participation and therefore reducing selection bias. This increases the credibility of the data collected and ensures trustworthiness.
Reference
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