Students' attitudes toward e-learning of a biomedical instrumentation course in the biomedical engineering program in PPU

Abstract

The increasing availability of high-speed Internet, faster and more powerful personal computers, and wireless Internet provide learners with more opportunities to access, view, and participate in an e-learning environment. More web-based applications are being developed and deployed to meet the expanding demands of the mobile learner. Therefore, e-learning is widely used in universities and other organizations all over the world, either to support classroom learning or on its own. The Palestine Polytechnic University (PPU) is no exception. Usually, a special kind of web-based content management system is used for running e-learning courses. These systems hold all the course content and information of the students and also provide the interactive tools to support learning process. While using such systems makes the e-learning experience much easier, it also induces some problems like the heterogeneous previous knowledge of the students. The attitude of students towards e-learning is an important factor in an e-learning. There have not been any major surveys in the PPU in that regard. This article presents a survey about the usage and the attitudes toward education technology at PPU in Palestine. The survey aims at assessing the experience, skills and computer efficacy of students, measuring their attitudes towards the use of education technology and distinguishing obstacles for the development of an e-learning environment. The results indicate positive attitudes of students toward this new approach of learning. The survey is used for the development of the university e-learning strategy, providing information on how to establish systems and procedures that enable the effective use of an e-learning approach.