YEMENI UNDERGRADUATES’ TECHNOLOGY USE PREFERENCES IN COURSES: a Field Study on Taiz University and Al-Saeed University

Abstract

This descriptive study aims at assessing how much technology Yemeni undergraduates prefer to use in their academic courses. Technology amount refers to the amount of information and communication technology used in academic courses of Yemeni universities. Technology amount is ranked as follows: no technology, limited technology, moderate technology, extensive technology, or exclusive technology. Data have been collected through a survey questionnaire offered to a random sample of 620 undergraduates at Taiz University and Al-Saeed University. Five hundred seventy students responded to the questionnaire. 355 (62.28%) and 215 (37.72) respondents belong to each university, respectively. The researcher anarmajore data using SPSS. The analyzed data revealed that only 12.98 percent of surveyed respondents preferred to take courses that do not use any technology while the majority of them (87.2 percent) preferred to take courses that use technology. However, techminded students had different degrees of preference for technology use in their courses. Also, the study found that there was no statistically significant difference among undergraduates on the basis of their demographics except for age, study status, and major. For example, students from engineering and business management showed more interest in the use of technology in their studies compared to other majors. The study has been carried out on two major Yemeni universities. More Yemeni universities should be targeted by future research. The paper dealt only with undergraduate student preferences for technology amount to use in their academic courses. Other aspects like technology skills, benefits, applications, training, and so on can be addressed by future research.