Validating Factors That Impact the Acceptance and Use of e-Assessment among Academics in Saudi Universities

Abstract

As assessment is one of the important pillars of the learning process, and E-assessment has become an essential part of education systems. E-assessment developed to address some of the limitations and problems of a paper-test. In last the 10 years, E-assessment has improved in developed countries such as UK. In contrast, in Saudi Arabia, one of the developing countries, less attention is still paid to accept and use of E-assessment and research which discusses E-assessment issues in Saudi Arabia is limited. This paper aims to investigate the factors that has an effect on academics use of E-assessment in Saudi universities. Last study by Alruwais et al. [1] has developed the Model of Acceptance and Usage of E-assessment (MAUE) that has derived from the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour model (DTPB), other theories and models, which investigate the user acceptance and use of ICT, and other related studies. The model consists of the following factors: attitude (perceived ease to use, perceived usefulness, and compatibility), subjective norm (peer influence and superior influence) and perceived behavioural control factors (self-efficacy, resource facilitating conditions, and IT support). Age and gender are also included to the proposed model as moderating factors. In order to refine these factors, interviews were conducted with experts. The results of the interviews show that attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control and its related sub-factors have an influence on academics’ intention to use E-assessment. In order to refine these factors, interviews were conducted with experts. The results of the interviews show that attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control and its related sub-factors have an influence on academics’ intention to use E-assessment. However, experts suggested removing gender and keeping age as a moderating factor. Furthermore, the experts recommended adding awareness of E-assessment as a sub-factor under the attitude factor and including the availability of a security system in the resource facilitating conditions sub-factor.