Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology

Challenges of Using Digital Learning Resources among Higher Education Students in Nepal: A TPACK Framework Analysis

2025-10-12T21:44:49+03:00

This study aimed to explore the challenges faced by higher education students on the use of digital learning resources in classrooms during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted among higher education students studying in the Master of Education (M.Ed.) programme with specialized in Health Education from Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal employing an exploratory qualitative research design with a narrative inquiry approach. For this study, three campuses under the TU were selected purposively, where three focus group discussions were conducted to solicit information from 18 participants, with six from each campus. The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) explanatory framework was used to analyze the data under four broader themes: technological challenges, pedagogical challenges, content-related challenges, and other challenges. The findings of the study indicated that the students faced multiple levels of challenges such as lack of personal hardware devices, internet service, and appropriate knowledge of using digital learning resources like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, along with financial and pedagogical challenges that further impeded their access to these resources. Despite the university's adoption of online classroom teaching guidelines, the implementation was ineffective, and the curriculum remained outdated, hindering the ability to envision classroom activities beyond the university's premises. The study underscores the need for systemic reforms, including investments in ICT-based infrastructure, faculty professional development programs, curriculum modernization, and policy reform to ensure equitable access and effective digital learning. Future researchers are encouraged to conduct intervention-based studies in collaboration with stakeholders to address the underlying challenges as identified by this study.

Examining the Technostress Levels of Biology Teachers

2025-12-21T21:04:16+03:00

Technostress is the stress that emerges from difficulties in coping with the use and integration of information and communication technologies.The purpose of this study is to determine the technostress levels of biology teachers and to examine whether these levels differ according to various demographic variables (gender, age, education level, seniority, weekly lesson hours, years of ICT use and daily ICT usage time for educational purposes). The study employed a descriptive survey model, one of the quantitative research designs. The study group consisted of 99 biology teachers working in public schools in a city in southeastern Türkiye during the 2022–2023 academic year. The participants were selected using random sampling, and participation was based on voluntary consent. Data were collected using a “Personal Information Form” and the “Teachers' Technostress Levels Defining Scale” developed by Çoklar et al. (2017). Since the data were normally distributed, parametric tests (independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA) were used in the analyses. The results revealed that biology teachers generally reported a moderate level of technostress. No significant differences were found in terms of gender, age, educational level and weekly teaching hours; however, significant differences were identified in relation to seniority, years of ICT use, and daily ICT usage time for educational purposes. In particular, teachers who were new to the profession and those with fewer years of ICT experience reported higher levels of technostress.The effect size analyses indicated that the observed differences generally reflected a moderate impact (η²), suggesting that the identified variables had a meaningful but not large influence on technostress levels. It can be said that increasing teachers' digital competencies and strengthening technical support mechanisms can help reduce technostress.