Acquiring Information Technology Skills by Freshmen Students at Kuwait University: The Language Factor

The provision of academic courses for freshmen students aiming at improving their information technology skills is crucial due to the large number of students admitted every year. Kuwait University introduced a service course in information technology skills to freshman students in the College of Science to be taught in English, and a similar course to freshmen students in the College of Social Science to be taught in Arabic. This paper attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching information technology skills to freshmen students at Kuwait University, compare the results between the two colleges, and ascertain whether the language of instruction played any role in achieving these results. A questionnaire was distributed at the beginning and end of the course work to measure the pre-test knowledge, post-test knowledge, and the progress of acquiring new terminology among the students in both colleges. A total of 196 students participated in the study. The findings showed that science students have more prior knowledge of information technology terminology and acquired more terms during coursework. Social science students fell short of achieving similar results