• Energy Research

This study examines the online teaching abilities and competencies needed to teach online courses in Saudi Arabia’s higher education system. As a result, the goal of this study was to examine and expand the technology acceptance model (TAM) to assess online teaching abilities and competences utilizing digital technologies in higher education during the COVID-19 epidemic. Therefore, it aimed to develop a new model to measure and explore critical factors that influence online teaching skills, competencies, and actual use of digital tools in higher education. The participants in the study were 350 lecturers at King Faisal University. The research data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (AMOS-SEM). The findings revealed that: (a) perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on using digital tools during the COVID-19 pandemic has a direct positive impact on perceived teaching self-efficacy, perceived enjoyment, online teaching skills, and digital tools access; (b) perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of using digital tools have a direct positive impact on lecturers’ attitude toward use and lecturers’ behavioral intention to use digital tools during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (c) perceived ease of use. As a consequence of the findings, a validated instrument was designed to assess and investigate crucial elements that impact lecturers’ real usage of digital technologies for teaching and learning in Saudi Arabia’s higher education.

Conceptual mapping tools have been used more and more for various educational purposes in recent years by academicians and educators. In addition, developments of technology that include conceptual mapping have a significant influence on education sustainability. Nevertheless, students’ understanding and motivation in using conceptual mapping in the context of education sustainability has rarely been assessed. Thus, this study could be useful for developing and testing theories related to using conceptual mapping, as well as for practitioners who use conceptual mapping in education sustainability. Besides being used as a method of assessment, these mapping tools are used to improve the students’ critical and analytical thinking skills and to facilitate the demonstration of relationships among concepts. Instead of using written or verbal descriptions, these tools utilise various diagrammatic relationships. The use of pictures, diagrams and visual illustrations are believed to facilitate the understanding of complex topics more readily. Therefore, this research aims to develop a new model that employs conceptual mapping for improving the motivation and achievements of students. A survey was distributed to 247 participants who are using conceptual mapping tools for learning, and the data were quantitatively analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM-Amos). The results of this study show that conceptual mapping can be used to increase students’ understanding and motivation to improve their academic achievements.

E-learning is expected to become a common teaching and learning approach in educational institutions in the near future; thus, the success of e-learning initiatives must be ensured in order to make this a sustainable mode of learning. In order to improve students’ learning performance through the use of e-learning in Saudi Arabia’s higher education, it was the objective of this paper to examine the relationships between social cognitive theory and learning input factors and the reflective thinking and inquiry learning style as well as the indirect effects of student problem-solving and critical thinking skills. As a result, this study thoroughly assessed the social cognitive theory that is currently in use, along with learning input components and situational factors that should be carefully taken into account while introducing an online education system into Saudi Arabia’s top universities as a way of ensuring learning sustainability. As a result, 294 university students completed a questionnaire that served as the initial dataset for the research study, and the proposed conceptual model was comprehensively assessed using SEM. The research results demonstrated that the inquiry style of learning and reflective thinking have always had a significant impact on the social involvement, human engagement, social power, social identity, and social support. Similar findings were obtained regarding the impact of problem-solving and critical thinking skills on the inquiry-based learning approach and reflective thinking. Thus, students’ ability to learn in Saudi Arabia’s higher education is greatly influenced by their ability to solve problems and think critically. Therefore, it is almost certain that this research study will aid university policy makers in their decision on whether to fully deploy an online learning system as a way of ensuring learning sustainability at educational institutions throughout Saudi Arabia.

In the classroom, blended learning is rising in popularity. The goal of this study was to investigate and assess the factors that affect students’ readiness for, perception of behavioral control over, attitudes toward, behavioral intention to use, and actual usage of blended learning in higher education. The researchers therefore set out to develop a novel model for assessing and investigating key factors that affect students’ readiness as well as their perceived behavioral control over their use of blended learning in higher education. The study involved 345 undergraduate and graduate students from King Faisal University. In order to analyze the research data, structural equation modeling was used (AMOS-SEM). (a) The students’ readiness for and perceived behavioral control of blended learning have a direct positive impact on students’ self-efficacy, motivation to learn, learning control, and learning autonomy; (b) The students’ readiness for and perceived behavioral control of blended learning have a direct positive impact on students’ attitude toward use and students’ behavioral intention to use blended learning; and (c) the students’ attitude toward blended learning has a direct positive impact on scholastic achievement. A validated instrument was created to examine and look into key factors that influence students’ willingness to accept blended learning in Saudi Arabian higher education as a result of the findings.