Barriers To The Use Of Information And Communication Technologies In Teaching And Learning Business Education
Loading...
Date
2012-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Education is an instrument “per excellence” for national development. Business education is one
of the programs run in about 117 universities in Nigeria. It was believed that business education
has the capacity to bring about the required development since it is a course of instruction aimed at
inculcating in the youth the skills, attitudes and competencies which are necessary to empower
them to be gainfully engaged so that they will be useful citizens and contribute to the development
of Nigeria and the society. However, there seemed to be gaps between the nation’s educational
objectives and their realization. The obvious indicators to this fact are poor skills of graduates who
cannot fit into the office of today, unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment of the
country. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) where properly utilized is capable
of making the difference in empowering the students with the needed skills, attitudes and
competencies. This study explored the barriers to the use of ICTs in teaching and learning
business education. The researcher constructed 15 questionnaire items from research reports
relevant to the study. The questionnaire was validated using Cronbach Alpha which yielded a
reliability coefficient of 0.78. A total of 256 questionnaire items were administered to 202
business educators and 54 students of business education respectively from Universities offering
business education in Nigeria and all of which were completed and retrieved. The Research
Question “what are the barriers to the use of ICTs in teaching and learning business education in
Nigeria?” was answered using mean rating and standard deviation. The Hypothesis of no
significant difference in the mean responses of business educators and business education students
from universities regarding barriers to the use of ICTs in teaching and learning business
education was tested using student T-test. The study revealed that all the constructs, except one,
constituted barriers to the use of ICTs in teaching and learning business education in Nigeria
universities. it was concluded that the revealed barriers be tackled by the government, the
university authorities, the teachers and the students so that the university environment would be
repositioned to play its role of empowering the youth with the skills, attitude and competencies
needed for Nigeria’s development.