Instructor Perceptions of E-Learning in an Arab Country: Kuwait University as a Case Study

Abstract

The rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT), especially the recent explosive growth of Internet capacities, offers tremendous educational opportunities. The future growth and development of e-learning technologies is, perhaps, the most important of these trends in the realm of education. In fact, e-learning in particular is slowly being accepted as one of the criteria of a progressive, innovative, and leading higher educational institution. The Internet has created a new paradigm of learning which can allow teachers and students to teach and learn collaboratively via web-designed courses. While the quantitative impact of e-learning, such as cost effectiveness, can be easily measured, articulating the qualitative effectiveness of e-learning is more challenging. While the bulk of the studies related to e-learning focus on the quantitative impact of e-learning, the purpose of this research is to study the pedagogical impact of e-learning on higher education, specifically the university-level educational institution within an Arab university setting. Despite the existence of the varied number of significant challenges associated with teaching staff attitudes toward the e-learning model and with the institutional support for staff engaged on working with the e-learning environment, this study shows that e-learning has an important role in the enhancement and development of students' critical thinking. As a result, if academic institutions wish to develop e-learning initiatives, they must be receptive to implementing effective strategies to support such a beneficial and innovative initiative for the benefit of student learning.