The Students’ Attitudes towards Using Internet Sources to Develop their Reading Skills: Benefits, Barriers and Preferences

Abstract

Using the Internet in the field of education has proved quite a boon over the last few decades. With the ever-growing awareness of Internet sources, it is now widely used as a teaching aid, playing thus an important role in both the teaching and learning processes. Hence, the present study aimed chiefly at finding out the students‘ reading preferences as well as investigating their attitudes towards the benefits of and barriers to using Internet sources to develop their reading skills. It is based on the hypotheses that if EFL learners at the Department of English at Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia University were frequently exposed to Internet sources their reading skills would be enhanced. It is also hypothesised that if they read online they would appreciate it more because it offers an unlimited number of texts and documents. In order to verify these hypotheses, a questionnaire was administered to fifty Master one students, the analysis of which yielded results that supported the hypotheses stated above. It was found out that the students had positive attitudes towards the use of Internet sources, Furthermore, the analysis of the results demonstrated the existence of some difficulties that students face while using Internet sources and the most problematic areas for the students are complex and unknown vocabulary as well as non-availability of Internet and inadequate computer operating skills. Finally, the analysis of the research findings supported the assumption that students prefer to read through using online materials rather than printed ones due to their practicality because it offers unlimited number of texts and documents.