Investigation of ESL Students' Interaction With Online Information Resources

Research Problem

Saudi Arabia has a scholarship program that provides opportunities for Saudi citizens to pursue their undergraduate and graduate university education abroad in many of the academic disciplines needed by the government and private sector (Saudi Arabia culture bureau in Canada, 2016). Because students have not mastered English, they initially enroll in English courses at specialized institutions. Learning a second language is a major challenge for learners because they need a range of requirements and information resources. In the digital environment, different types of resources can satisfy a student’s desire for an appropriate learning style. Some students like to learn by listening, some by reading, and others by speaking. Online resources have thus been recognized as an important source of linguistic and cultural knowledge for ESL learners to explore (Shen, Yuan, & Ewing 2015). The problem occurs when students do not know where to find resources for their preferred style and how to access them. However, Saudi students’ use of information resources for learning English is unclear. This study thus investigates the information-seeking behavior of Saudi ESL students when using online resources.