Saudi EFL university students’ perceptions of using Blackboard in writing activities: An application of Technology Acceptance Model

Abstract

Several higher educational institutions have employed Learning Management Systems. The Blackboard Collaborate system, featured as one of the technological instructional systems, is an example of considerable and outstanding Learning Management Systems utilized by most universities. Nevertheless, literature revealed that there is a missing association between the application of Blackboard and its inadequate practice in learning and teaching. Hence, this paper aims to investigate Saudi EFL university students’ perceptions of using Blackboard in doing their writing activities at the Saudi Electronic University. An online survey was administered to 210 participants. Using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as an analytical framework, six hypotheses, namely participants’ perceived ease of use (PEOU) positively impacts their perceived convenience (PC), participants’ PC positively impacts their perceived usefulness (PU), participants’ PEOU positively impacts their PU, participants’ PEOU positively impacts their attitude toward use (ATU), participants’ PU positively impacts their ATU, and finally participants’ ATU positively impacts their behavioral intention (BI), were used to investigate the impact of TAM constructs. The study found that all six hypotheses were supported. The results revealed strong, positive connections between the different constructs. The model proposed in this paper identifies PEOU as the best indicator of PC. The researcher suggests that future studies could expand the sample to include professors and students from other departments.