Impact of Web technologies on student-lecturer expert power relationship

Expert power is “the power that comes from having knowledge and expertise in a particular area” (Nazarko, 2004). In the history of the development of higher education, the relationship between the lecturer and the students has changed because of many different factors. Before the internet and web revolution, the lecturer used to be the main information source for his/her students. The web as a modern source of knowledge is now used universally and this spreading trend might affect the relationship between the lecturer and his students. Understanding the impact of this change appears to be important as it would be employed in improving teaching techniques. In this area, many studies have focused on the impact of using the internet and web applications on students and lecturers. These studies have widely investigated this impact on student’s achievements, attitude and also have shown how the role and performance of the faculty have changed. This paper aims to investigate the impact of using web resources as a source of knowledge on the student-lecturer relationship from students’ perspectives. The investigation focuses on how students’ knowledge gained from using websites has impacted on the relationship with their lecturer as a knowledgeable person which theoretically means Expert power. 1661 students from 30 universities/ educational institutions participated in this research.