Arab Educational Information Network

Saudi Arabia’s emphasis on the quality, of education that is prevalent in its educational institutions, has quality has grown tremendously in recent years. The primary reason for this robust emphasis on education's quality is the presumption that education's quality is associated positively and strongly with economic diversity and sustainable growth. To improve education's quality at all its tiers, the Saudi government has taken different measures that include issuing of policy direction to its educational institutions to persuade or push their faculties to adopt modern instructional technologies. This qualitative study intended to find: 1) what options do the Saudi educators in higher education exercise mostly to professionally develop themselves to use various relevant instructional technologies. 2) How efficient these options are. 3) Whether the incorporation, of instructional technologies in conventional teaching strategies, make conventional teaching strategies efficient or not. The results, of the qualitative study that are based on four interviews and three structured observations as a sample of the current study, reveal that most of the Saudi educators attend workshops and seminars to develop professional competencies to use instructional technologies. The results also show that instructional technologies help educators in teaching effectively. (Published abstract)