INTERNET AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN IRANIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

The role of education has become stronger in different affairs such as social, economical and personal subjects across the societies. So, the lack of access to educational centers caused the advents of new methods for responding to educational needs. With new method like E-learning, we can educate people in various places and times. Some researches have done regarding to the role of E-learning in learning and academic achievement, but there was a gap about the role of Internet on academic achievement and learning especially in Iranian higher Education. The main objective of this research was to determine the relationship between the amount of Internet usage and academic achievement in higher Education in Iran. This research was a descriptive correlational study. The participants in this study were students who were studying in the second semester 2007/08 in the Islamic Azad University-Mashhad Branch in Iran. SPSS version 16 was used for analyzing the data of study. The validity and reliability (=0.83) of instrument were tested. The result indicates that there was no significant relationship between the amount of using Internet and the academic level of student. Also, there was no significant relationship between the amounts of using Internet by instructors in class presentations or conferences and his/her help to students to know how to use Internet in the course affairs, students' tendency in competing, cooperation and participation in academic discussion with the amount of using Internet. However, there was a positive relationship between their attitude towards the effects of using database and digital library in learning the course content with the amount of using Internet. Finally, the finding displays there were not significant differences about the academic achievement between students who use Internet for learning the course and students who did not. The study reveals that maybe students who use Internet, they spent time for doing other tasks than the course. So, it needs to further researches to identify exact estimation about the role of Internet on academic achievement