Validating Factors That Impact the Acceptance and Use of e-Assessment among Academics in Saudi Universities

Abstract

Abstract-As assessment is one of the important pillars of the learning process, and e-assessment has become an essential part of education systems. E-assessment developed to address some of the limitations and problems of a paper-test. In last the 10 years, E-assessment has improved in developed countries such as UK. In contrast, in Saudi Arabia, one of the developing countries, less attention is still paid to accept and use of E-assessment and research which discusses E-assessment issues in Saudi Arabia is limited. This paper aims to investigate the factors that has an effect on academics use of E-assessment in Saudi universities. Last study by Alruwais et al.[1] has developed the Model of Acceptance and Usage of E-assessment (MAUE) that has derived from the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour model (DTPB), other theories and models, which investigate the user acceptance and use of ICT, and other related studies. The model consists of the following factors: attitude (perceived ease to use, perceived usefulness, and compatibility), subjective norm (peer influence and superior influence) and perceived behavioural control factors (self-efficacy, resource facilitating conditions, and IT support). Age and gender are also included to the proposed model as moderating factors. In order to refine these factors, interviews were conducted with experts. The results of the interviews show that attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control and its related sub-factors have an influence on academics' intention to use E-assessment. However, experts suggested removing gender and keeping age as a moderating factor. Furthermore, the experts recommended adding awareness of E-assessment as a sub-factor under the attitude factor and including the availability of a security system in the resource facilitating conditions sub-factor. Index Terms-E-assessment, e-exam, electronic exam, online exam.

The Shift to Online Assessment Due to COVID-19: An Empirical Study of University Students, Behaviour and Performance, in the Region of UAE

“…Although e-assessment has advantageous properties compared to standard assessment methods, such as saving time for the teachers to correct the paper [16]. E-assessment however does provide advantages such as reducing the tutors time and effort and therefore being introduced into the education system [17]. There are multiple qualitative methodologies that can be used to conduct online assessments.…”

Educational Technology Adoption: A systematic review

“… Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1986 , 1989 ), the widely used reliable model, to explore new facilitating technologies in educational context, ranging from social media platforms (Yu, 2020 ) to the technology aimed at helping the learning process through teaching assistant robots (Park and Kwon, 2016 ), simulators (Lemay, Morin, Bazelais & Doleck, 2018 ), and virtual reality (Jang, Ko, Shin & Han, 2021 ); Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (DTPB) (Taylor & Todd, 1995 ) to understand university students’ adoption of WhatsApp in learning (Nyasulu & Chawinga, 2019 ), to explore factors that influence teachers’ intentions to integrate digital literacy (Sadaf & Gezer, 2020 ), as well as to examine factors that impact the acceptance and usage of e-assessment by academics (Alruwais, Wills & Wald, 2017 ); Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis & Davis, 2003 ) to study core factors affecting the university students’ attitude towards adoption of online classes during COVID-19 (Tiwari, 2020 ), to explore the factors that influence preservice teachers’ acceptance of ICT integration in the classroom (Birch & Irvine, 2009 ), and students’ usage of e-learning systems in developing countries (Abbad, 2021 ); Extended UTAUT (UTAUT2) (Venkatesh, Thong & Xu, 2012 ) to evaluate acceptance of blended learning in executive education (Dakduk, Santalla-Banderali & van der Woude, 2018 ), and to examine preservice teachers’ acceptance of learning management software (Raman & Don, 2013 ). …”

“…Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (DTPB) (Taylor & Todd, 1995 ) to understand university students’ adoption of WhatsApp in learning (Nyasulu & Chawinga, 2019 ), to explore factors that influence teachers’ intentions to integrate digital literacy (Sadaf & Gezer, 2020 ), as well as to examine factors that impact the acceptance and usage of e-assessment by academics (Alruwais, Wills & Wald, 2017 );…”

Technology Acceptance and Adoption in Education

“…This model promotes decomposed belief structures since attitudinal, normative, as well as control beliefs are additionally decomposed into multidimensional belief constructs. DTPB was used, for example, to examine factors that impact the acceptance and usage of e-assessment by academics, specifically attitude (perceived ease to use, perceived usefulness, and compatibility), subjective norm (peer influence and superior influence), as well as perceived behavioral control factors (self-efficacy, resource-facilitating conditions, and information technology support) (Alruwais, Wills, & Wald, 2017).…”