Evaluating WebCT Use in Relation to Students' Attitude and Performance

The World Wide Web (WWW) provides great opportunities for creating virtual classrooms (Mazza and Dimitrova, 2004) and for building integrated learning and teaching environments (Cheng and Yen, 1998) and it also helps in supporting traditional educational methods (Kalifa and Lam 2002). Teaching and learning are no longer limited by place or time (Kalifa and Lam 2002). The WWW and the internet are considered to be important new methods for delivering online courses (Jiang and Ting, 2000; Lee and Shih, 2001). The interest in web-based learning and technology to support learning is increasing in higher education and this can be seen in the large number of publications in higher education journals in this area (Hoskins and Hooff, 2005; Bower, 2001). Large numbers of educational institutions are offering web-based courses (Owston, 2000) or starting to use course management systems such as WebCT or Blackboard (Mazza and Dimitrova, 2004) Interaction is central in teaching and learning; the learning process is based on student interaction with instructors, other students, and with the course content (Lei et al., 2003). At the same time, communication and collaboration between the students and instructors can be enhanced by the internet and WWW (Cheng and Yen, 1998). ABSTRACT