USE OF ICT TOOLS AND ACADEMIC ENGAGEMENT OF STUDENTS IN SOUTH-WEST NIGERIA UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

Education is considered globally as the instrument per excellence for social and economic transformation of the society and the core of education is teaching and learning process. This is accomplished better when teachers effectively engage students with academic works. However, despite the infrastructural facilities provided by the States, Federal Ministry of Education agencies such as TETFUND, Quality Assurance units of the universities, private donors and the professional development of lecturers, it appears little is happening in the Nigerian Universities classrooms regarding academic engagement of students. This could be due to non-integration of adequate ICT tools to drive academic engagements of students in the universities system. However, few studies have examined the use of ICT tools in the South-West Nigerian universities, hence, this study. The study employed survey research design. The population of the study was 14,648 of eight Federal universities in the south west, Nigeria. The sample size of 392 was determined by using Taro Yamane (1967) formula. Stratified and simple sampling techniques were used to select 126 lecturers and 266 students from the 8 Federal universities used for the study. Data was collected with structured and validated questionnaire. Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the constructs ranged from 0.70to 0.95. Data were analysed by using descriptive analysis. Findings showed that ICT tools were available but not adequate for academic engagement. In addition, the available ICT tools were not used frequently and coupled with the inadequacy of the tools, its effect was not felt much. It was also found that use of the available ICT tools influenced the lecturers to introduce new innovation in teaching, which in turn facilitates smooth delivery of instructions and saves time and energy. Respondents also identified the challenges facing the use of ICT tools to include inadequate funding to procure ICT infrastructure and modern ICT tools, lack of supervision, unstable network and power supply and lack of policy on ICT use in the university system. The study concluded that university administrators should liaise with TETFUND to provide ICT infrastructures such as modern ICT tools, broadband access that will facilitate speedy internet access as well as alternative power supply to resolve the challenges of unstable power supply for enhanced academic engagement. Furthermore, university administrators should sensitize and encourage lecturers to use tutorial hours for effective academic engagement where necessary to resolve the challenge of limited hours allocated to courses