- Aug 30, 2021
- Posted by: admin
- Category: Abstract of 3rd-worldcte
Proceedings of The 3rd World Conference on Teaching and Education
Year: 2021
DOI:
Assessment of WhatsApp as a Communication Tool Among Bachelor and Master Degree Students at Taif University: A Cross-Sectional Study
Dr. Amal Alaboud
ABSTRACT:
Background: Mobile applications are now widely used for communication. WhatsApp is at top of these applications. Since the traditional teaching is not possible due to the current situation, many educational institutions shifted toward online teaching. Students use many tools for communication with their professors. This study aimed to assess WhatsApp application communication channel between students and professors.
Method: This is a cross-sectional descriptive correlation study. The study was conducted among students of Foreign Languages Department at Taif University. The data was collected using an online form. The online form contained sociodemographic data and perceived usefulness of WhatsApp scale. The data were analyzed using SPSS program.
Results: The study included 200 participants, most of them were females (n= 195). The mean age of study participants was 21.78 + 4.46. The study included both bachelor and master degree students from all academic years. Students used mainly WhatsApp for communication and there were 7% used email and black board messaging system. Students strongly agreed that WhatsApp is very useful application for communication. The mean to their answers to the scale items was 4.47. Participants characteristics were statistically significant related to scale items at a level less than 0.05.
Conclusion: There are no doubts that technology helped a lot in education. The previous results show that students rely mainly on WhatsApp for communication with their professors. They also recommended it for educational purposes.
Keywords: WhatsApp, communication, education, covid-19, tools.