Examining saudi students’ perceptions on the use of the blackboard platform during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The present study aims to examine students’ perceptions on using the Blackboard learning system during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study investigates the effectiveness of the Blackboard on the students’ learning during Coronavirus lockdown. It aims at finding out the difficulties and the challenges students face while using the Blackboard platform as a learning tool. It is expected that this study will contribute to the growing literature on the use of the Blackboard, mainly on its purposes to replace face-to-face learning/teaching process. Therefore, this study provides information about the learning experiences of Saudi students while the highly active use of the Blackboard and presents the challenges faced by the students during the online learning/teaching process. The study employs the quantitative research method as a questionnaire is used for collecting data. It is designed in Google format and emailed to the students. A sample of 270 respondents was selected from the Community College Abqaiq, King Faisal University. The method of analysis is descriptive statistical analysis, where the SPSS is employed for data analysis. The result reveals that students’ perceptions are positive because students are aware of the benefit of the Blackboard platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. And when comparing choice preference between blended courses and online courses, students prefer blended courses. This is due to the challenges and difficulties that students face while using the Blackboard platform.