Egyptian Instructors and Massive Open Online Courses: An Attitudinal Intentional Study

Abstract — This study aims at investigating the Egyptian instructors’ attitude and behavioral intention to use and develop massive open online courses (MOOCs) (i.e. asynchronous, open-access, web-based courses geared toward enrolling hundreds of learners at a time). The study sample consists of 235 Egyptian university instructors belonging to nine Egyptian universities: Cairo, Ain Shams, Port Said, Suez, Mansoura, Helwan, South Valley, Damietta, and Zagazig universities. The data collected were analyzed within the framework of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) stating that there are three factors that influence the users’ decision about why, when and how they use modern technology: (1) perceived usefulness (PU), (2) perceived ease – of – use (PEOU), and (3) external variables. The results showed that the Egyptian instructors displayed strong positive attitude towards MOOCs (M = 5.56 and SD = 66%). Furthermore, the results showed that the participants have strong behavioral intention to use MOOCs (M = 4.99 and SD = 0.70) and strong behavioral intention to develop them (M= 5.91 and SD= 0.53). The results also displayed a moderate correlation between the participants’ attitude and behavioral intention to develop MOOCs (R = 0.474)