A FRAMEWORK FOR ACCEPTANCE OF E-ASSESSMENT BY STUDENTS IN SAUDI ARABIAN UNIVERSITIES

Someah Alangari¹ Gary Wills² and Mike Wald^3
1PhD Students, University of Southampton, UK, sssa1e13@soton.ac.uk
²Dr., University of Southampton, UK,  gbw@ecs.soton.ac.uk
³Prof., University of Southampton, UK, mw@ecs.soton.ac.uk

Abstract
Assessment is a very important part of the learning process. With the increase of using information technologies in higher education, the need of adopting E-assessment is rising. E-assessment which uses several technologies to assess students provides many benefits for educational organizations, staff and students compared to paper based assessment. Understanding students' attitudes towards E-assessment plays a key role in the success and acceptance of E-assessment systems. In fact, a number of studies investigated students' perceptions and attitudes toward E-assessment in different countries such as the UK. However, no research has been conducted in the context of Saudi Arabian universities. Therefore, the main contribution of this paper is the investigation of the factors that affect students' attitudes towards using E-assessment in Saudi Arabian universities. In order to make effective use of E-assessment, the possible factors that affect students' attitude towards E-assessment are used in developing a conceptual framework. The framework includes factors related to Individual, social, organizational and systems issues.

Keywords: Students’ attitudes, E-assessment, E-exam, Saudi Arabian Universities