The Attitude of Middle Eastern Faculty toward the use of Distance Education in the Middle Eastern State Universities: A Comparative Study between the Middle Eastern Faculty and USA Faculty

摘要

Although distance education is offered in many academic institutions, specificallyuniversities, in most of the developed countries, utilizing it as a part of the educational system inthe Middle East is still in the development stage and not at the same stage as Western andEuropean countries. Of the institutions in the Middle East that have started utilizing distanceeducation, many face difficulties, an example of which is that these distance programs are notaccredited by the educational system in the country. In turn, this leads to other problems forgraduates of these distance programs, such as inability to find a job or inability to go for a highereducation degree.As the faculty members of the universities in the Middle East represent a strong and aneffective part of the education stake holders in the Middle East, this study investigates theirattitudes toward the use of distance education in Middle Eastern universities. A comparisonbetween the attitudes of the faculty members in the Middle East and faculty members in theUnited States was conducted.The study involved 139 faculty members from the Middle East, who live and work inYemen, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain; and 126 participants fromthe United States, who work at various universities. To investigate their attitudes toward the useof distance education, a web-based survey was created in two versions, Arabic and English, anda link to it was sent out to participants via email.The study results showed negative attitudes of Middle Eastern faculty members in the useof technology, culture and social, economic, location, policies, educational, academicachievement and availability of distance education tools factors. When compared to the facultymembers in the USA, Middle Eastern faculty members showed more negative attitudes towardthe use of distance education.