Barriers to Using the Blackboard System in Teaching and Learning: Faculty Perceptions

Abstract

In this digital age, the success of faculty members in adopting technology definitely affects the success of their students and ultimately the educational institution. However, there are many who have not incorporated technology tools such as Blackboard into their courses. Therefore, this paper investigated faculty perceptions of barriers to using the Blackboard system in teaching and learning. This study was conducted at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia during the 2015/2016 academic year. An online questionnaire was circulated to 117 faculty members in order to determine how they perceive barriers to using Blackboard. Findings of the study showed that academic rank, experience, gender, and training had statistically significant effects on faculty perceptions regarding barriers to using Blackboard in teaching and learning. However, there were no statistically significant differences on faculty perceptions regarding barriers to the utilization of Blackboard triggered by the use or non-use of Blackboard. The current study also showed that ‘technological barriers’ and ‘institutional barriers’ were the most highly identified barriers among the four categories of barriers explored in this study. The student barriers category came as a third important factor, while the faculty barriers category ranked at the lower end.