The Driving Motives of Undergraduate Students ...

Electronic communication (e-communication) as a result of rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT), gaining momentum over the last decade, has become an important communication tool that has profoundly affected our lives with its great opportunities and possibilities. E-communication inevitably influenced educational institutions, and the institutions which implement e-communication effectively, have begun to provide significant advantages in terms of time, space, labor, and cost. This situation creates an impact on the educational institutions, especially on higher education institutions, so as to achieve more effective use of e-communication. In this study, based on the views of academic staff and undergraduate students, the reasons that make underground students use e-communication, advantages and disadvantages of e-communication, and the issues related to what should be done for the use of e-communication more effectively, have been examined. In the research, an interview technique was utilized as a means of data collection. Opinions of both 25 academic staff and 25 undergraduate students in the Faculty of Technology at Firat University, were taken by means of semi-structured questions. The obtained data were coded and the themes were determined. Then based on the frequencies of the repetition of the themes, the data were analyzed. The findings revealed that undergraduate students used e-communications, especially for sharing knowledge related educational issues, and that beside advantageous sides, there were disadvantageous features of e-communication as well.