The Acceptance of Social Personalised versus Static Web-based Education by Saudi Students

Saudi Arabia is going through massive changes in the educational system. In particular, web-based education is being strongly supported by the Saudi Ministry of Education. However, we believe a 'one size fits all' is especially not appropriate for the Saudi culture. Hence, this study focusses on the acceptance of the social personalised versus static web-based education by Saudi university students, and how a more social personalised system can cater for Saudi educational, instead of offering an identical delivery for all students regardless of students’ interests, preferences, backgrounds or even their knowledge. The comparison is based on the well-known Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the theoretical framework which we use for designing the data collection from students. The results from a case study in Taibah University point towards Saudi students accepting more easily a social personalised web-based education than static web-based education. Additionally, the results demonstrate that TAM is valuable in explaining the acceptance of the traditional and social personalised web-based education. Student’s attitude, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness were all found to be key factors in influencing the students’ acceptance. The outcomes of this study can aid educational institutes that plan to create static /social personalised web-based education systems, by taking into account these factors that affect students’ acceptance.