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Title: Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards Online Education


1
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Mona AbdelFattah Younes
  • March 2008

2
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Part One
  • Overview
  • Challenges within the Arab world
  • How was the project conducted
  • Part Two
  • When and how does information about OE reach
    young Arabs?
  • How is the expansion of OE within the Arab world
    perceived by young Arabs?
  • What are the socio-cultural factors undermining
    positive attitudes towards OE?
  • What are the characteristics of OE that undermine
    positive attitudes towards it?

3
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Overview
  • Internet users anticipated to reach 50 million by
    2009
  • Internet bandwidth grows by around 154 annually
  • As of Sep 2007
  • 17.3 of population were using the internet
  • 2,720,500 Internet broadband connections as of

4
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
5
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • League of Arab States issued a Draft Declaration
    of Principles in 2003 endorsing e-learning as a
    tool that can help eliminate illiteracy and
    deliver lifelong education for honing
    professional skills.

6
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education

7
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Challenges
  • Digital-divide mindset
  • No strategic vision
  • Not able to To disseminate concepts like
    knowledge construction via collaboration,
    interactivity, sharing, reflection, critical
    thinking, etc.
  • Not able to see the complex political, economic,
    institutional, cultural, and linguistic contexts.

8
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Accreditation
  • Higher education authorities are blamed for being
    absent and not undertaking any actions towards
    regulating providers of higher education that are
    outside the mainstream system, e.g. open-learning
    institutions, e-learning, virtual universities,
    etc.
  • Arab education systems
  • failed to prepare students for an active,
    independent, lifelong learning approach to
    education should be observed as a crucial issue
    impeding the spread and success of online
    learning

9
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • In short, there is still a negative attitude
    towards the workability of DE on the part of many
    decision makers (Nasser Abouchadid, 2000).
  • "we have the hardware, we have the software, but
    we lack the humanware"

10
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Linguistic challenges
  • Approximately 65 of Arab users are not
    comfortable with English and only 35 speak it
  • Arabic language web pages do not exceed a dismal
    0.1 of the entire content of the Web
  • Infrastructure
  • low international bandwidth, high dial-up
    tariffs, lack of careful planning, lack of
    quality educational material, lack of capable
    tutors to support online learning, absence of
    business plans during the funding period, and
    total dependence on foreign aid

11
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • How was the research conducted?
  • Two tools
  • Web-based survey Virtual Focus
    Group
  • Why? Why?

12
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Web-based survey
  • http//www.surveyconsole.com/console/TakeSurvey
  • Arabic
  • Youth style introduction and questions
  • 39 multiple (single answer) questions
  • 4 pages
  • Complete analysis reports

13
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
14
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Web-based survey promotion
  • 8500 emails sent out
  • Promotional banner on www.20at.com
  • Invitation posting on 3 Facebook networks

15
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Web-based survey respondents
  • 1004 viewed it
  • 565 started dropped out
  • 330 completed
    it

16
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Survey respondents
  • predominantly between 20-25 years old.
  • 56 males
  • 48 graduate/postgraduate students
  • 62 married
  • 64 employed in either full or part-time jobs
  • 13 lived outside the Arab world, rest came from
    all over the Arab world

17
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Virtual Focus Group
  • 6 female 2 male volunteer
  • 3 first weeks of November
  • Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
  • 16- 24 years old
  • High school student, journalist, NGO activist,
    GTA, Graduate students
  • Only one female participant preferred using a
    pseudonym

18
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • When and how does information about OE reach
    young Arabs?
  • 83 heard about it more than two years ago
  • 65 refered to the internet for information about
    Ed. Technologies
  • TV came second
  • All other sources composed 9
  • 14 of survey respondents indicated that no
  • information reaches them.

19
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • VFG participants declared that information about
    the issue is either 'limited' or 'poor'
  • I have no access to information about new
    innovations, especially in the field of
    education. It is only by chance that I get to
    know something, e.g. watching a TV program that
    would mention something about the issue. If I
    need any information, I would browse the net to
    find it.

20
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • How is the expansion of OE within the Arab world
    perceived by young Arabs?
  • 55 described their knowledge about OE within
    the Arab
  • world as 'poor' and
  • 18 confessed to being ignorant of it
  • Majority said that the internet is their ONLY
    source   

21
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • To have a better idea about OE, the sample,
    indicated that they would
  • 1- search online
  • 2- go through the experience of taking an
    online course
  • 3- ask Experts.

22
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • What are the socio-cultural factors undermining
    positive attitudes towards OE?
  • Current educational system
  • 42 of survey responses indicated that it was
    used within
  • classrooms as a means of entertainment
  • 25 experienced it as a means of presenting
    printed text
  • in the form of Power Point
    presentations.

23
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • M-Syria stated
  • Traditional educational institutions do not allow
    students, until this very moment, to browse the
    internet. There is an overwhelming fear that
    students will be exposed to unwanted ideas or
    concepts. That is why, in most cases, teachers
    try to convince their students that everything
    that they see, experience or read online is NOT
    TRUE.

24
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • E-Palestine stated
  • All children nowadays use ICT as much as they eat
    and drink. This indicates that it is not a
    problem with the availability of ICT. The real
    problem lies in the fact that we never treated
    computers or the internet as 'learning devices'.
    We never raised the issue from that perspective,
    and never viewed ICT as a means to develop
    ourselves academically and professionally.

25
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Accreditation
  • The majority of survey respondents choose
    'accreditation' to be the most crucial factor
    affecting their decision.
  • A-Egypt stated
  • Anyone thinking of continuing his studies online
    will, definitely, ask himself" Is the degree
    granted online going to be appreciated like other
    degrees obtained 'traditionally' ? Is it
    accredited? Is it going to help me to proceed
    with my academic endeavours?

26
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • What are the characteristics of OE that undermine
    positive attitudes towards it?
  • 1- The novelty of OE
  • S-Syria expressed
  • Communities oppose everything 'new', perceiving
    it as 'not trust-worthy'. People feel doubt,
    uncertainty and apprehensiveness towards OE
    because they have no real-life 'examples' to
    refer to. To disseminate 'success stories' may
    help to improve the prevailing negative
    attitudes.

27
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • 2- The cost of online educational programs
  • Results from the survey
  • OE is not by default 'expensive
  • Results from the VFG
  • The cost hinders successful expansion of OE
    within the Arab world.

28
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • S-Syria stated
  • One of the major factors that hinders any public
    positive attitude towards OE, is the 'cost
    factor'. People within the community won't be
    encouraged, as long as the education forces them
    to pay a lot. People within our Arab world suffer
    from poverty, and they struggle to afford basic
    education for their children. We should not
    forget that most Arab countries still face the
    problem of 'illiteracy'.

29
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Recommendations
  • To pave the way for a general public acceptance
    of this new innovation, OE, the issue of
    'accreditation' has to be resolved. Accrediting
    degrees obtained online, by the relevant
    governmental authorities, will be a very big
    motivator

30
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • National awareness campaigns are needed.
    involving NGOs, not-for profit educational
    institutions and the respected societal-elites.

31
Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
  • Thank you
  • Mona Abdelfattah Younes
  • monayegy_at_gmail.com
  • Mona.abdelfattah_at_sec.gov.qa
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