INTERACTIVE MEDIA IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A STRATEGY FOR ENHANCING STUDENTS' ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND CULTURAL INTEGRATION

Abstract

Technology continues to attract attention to all aspect of social life, including education. Technological innovations in education are aimed at increasing computational thinking to compete with global opportunities. In this way, developing interactive technologies for supporting students' learning in higher education is essential for students' academic achievement and cultural integration. The main objective of the study was to assess the effect of interactive media in the classroom in improving critical thinking skills and learning techniques. This objective was achieved by students' using Scratch as an interactive educational media to create posters for their project. The population involved year zero in BSc Computer Science students with no programming background in Hungary. The method of data collection was participant observation. The study revealed that interactive media in higher education is critical because they impact positively on students' academic achievement, cultural resilience and computational thinking. Also, the study found that most first year students, especially international students, struggle to adapt to the local culture and require some level of coping mechanisms to integrate into the new learning environment. This impacts negatively on their This impacts negatively on their academic performance and also their ability to cope in their new environment. The findings suggest that integration of educational technologies in higher education should be encouraged in all universities as additional innovative strategies for enhancing students' sharing and integration. Thus, the researchers concluded that programming with Scratch could be one of the effective interactive educational media for any student for promoting learning and interaction because programming with Scratch does not require previous programming abilities and can be used by students in higher education conveniently.