Impact of students' use of technology on their learning achievements in physiology courses at the University of Dammam

Abstract

Objective This study was conducted to investigate the possible relationship between students' use of technology and their achievements in physiology courses at five health colleges of the University of Dammam. Methods This study was conducted on 231 students studying physiology during their 2nd year at one of five health colleges (Medicine, Dental, Clinical Pharmacy, Applied Medical Sciences, and Nursing). An online survey was sent to the students regarding their use of technology and the devices they use. The Pearson correlation coefficient and descriptive statistics were implemented to study the frequency of, and relationship between, technology and learning achievement in physiology courses. Results This study observed a significant relationship between students' use of technology and their achievements in health colleges. The study also demonstrated that the most-used devices are laptops (50%) and phones (42%) followed by tablets (7%) and desktop computers (0.5%). This paper reports on the results of the survey, documenting what was revealed regarding how technology is used among students at the health colleges, as well as the important benefits on their achievements during physiology courses. Conclusions Technology usage might produce comparatively more significant increases in academic achievement than would non-usage. Further research is warranted to examine its effects.

Impact of Multimedia-Based Off-Line Learning on Student Motivation and Outcomes

“…Similar finding was also reported by Teoh & Neo (2007). It is in line with Mayer's multimedia learning theory, which stated that the development and usage of multimedia can be used to motivate, stimulate and assist students in masterying the subject, since people processing verbal or words and visual materials or pictures separately, and a certain material can be processed at a certain time and as a result meaningful learning can be achieved when they engage in an appropriate cognitive learning process (Mayer 2002;Milkova, 2015;Al-Hariri & Al-Hattami, 2017). It means that, teachers have important roles in the student outcomes.…”

“…They allow teachers a great possibility to demonstrate and visualize the subject matter more clearly and comprehensibly, as well as enabling them to prepare learning material for students to optimize their learning activities (Milkova, 2015). In line with this finding, it was also found that there was a significant relationship between students' use of multimedia learning and their achievements (Al-Hariri & Al-Hattami, 2017). It was also found that multimedia strategies effectively increased student's achievements in the primary and pre-school levels.…”

The relationship between willingness to communicate and social presence in an online English language course

“…Moreover, technology can be used to ease the effect of time constraints in the class and to complement classroom teaching with online instruction outside the class time (Lai, Yeung, & Hu, 2016). Previous research has examined the use of social media outside the classroom (Al-Hariri & Al-Hattami, 2017;Beckman, Bennett, & Lockyer, 2014;Donlan, 2014;Gosper, McKenzie, Pizzica, Malfroy, & Ashford-Rowe, 2014;Hamid, Waycott, Kurnia, & Chang, 2015) for both social and educational purposes. Most of the students in these studies are positive towards learning English online because they can access supplementary resources (Son, 2007) and feel less stressed in a "virtual community" (Goodband, Solomon, Samuels, Lawson, & Bhakta, 2012).…”

The Effectiveness of a Customized Online Collaboration Tool for Teaching and Learning

“…Hence, many studies were found that investigate the effects of technology on students. Most researchers concluded that the use of technology in education enhances student's academic achievement, increases student's interest and generally transforms learning (Al-Hariri & Al-Hattami, 2017;Flanagan, 2008;Francis, 2017;Lynch, 2006;McCoy, 2018;Lei & Zhao, 2005;Ricks, n.d.). While the majority of the literature has shown through empirical studies that educational software plays an important role in improving the academic achievement of the student, evidence is lacking of the effectiveness of the custommade educational software assessed by means other than the use of empirical methods.…”