Educational Technology Usage in Higher Education: Student and Instructor Digital Competency: A Case Study

Abstract

Background: digital technology plays an important role in higher education institutions. Objective: this study investigates how students and instructors are using digital tools, for what purposes they use digital technology and to what extent digital technologies adopted in higher education. Methodology: structural equation modeling was used; triangulation approaches, data have been collected from the students (n= 168), instructors (n=64) using a survey questionnaires and an in-depth interviews with students, instructors. Data was analyzed using SPSS v26. Result: Based on the data analysis more than 88.09% of students use digital tools for non-academic purposes (for entertainment), like playing games, online chatting with their friends, watching videos (movies), telegram, face book for personal or social use. However digital tools have a great impact on student academic achievement especially for students who score in GPA are greater than 3.5. Conclusion: higher education students have access to digital tools like the internet, desktop computers (1:6), laptops (4.16%) and mobile devices (97.61%). But 88.09% of students use digital tools for non-academic purposes. The digital competency of instructors and students are very low.  (74.21% of instructors not use digital tools in the Classroom)

Keywords: Digital technology, digital transformation, digital competency, academic, non-academic

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/14-3-03

Publication date: February 28^th 2023