Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards Online Education

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Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education

• Mona AbdelFattah Younes
• March 2008

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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?

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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

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Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
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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.

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Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education

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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.
  

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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

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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"

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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

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Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education

• How was the research conducted?
• Two tools
• Web-based survey Virtual Focus
  Group
• Why? Why?

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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

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Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education
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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

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Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education

• Web-based survey respondents
• 1004 viewed it
• 565 started dropped out
  
• 330 completed
  it

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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   

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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'.

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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

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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.

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Perceptions and Attitudes of Young Arabs Towards
Online Education

• Thank you
• Mona Abdelfattah Younes
• monayegy_at_gmail.com
• Mona.abdelfattah_at_sec.gov.qa