Assessment of Adaptation of E-learning in Engineering Education in Nigeria universities

Abstract

Some concerns had been expressed over the success rate of E-learning (EL) in the faculty of engineering in Nigeria Universities since the outbreak of COVID-19. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate EL in the faculty of engineering and consider the factors that hinders its effectiveness. This study seeks to verify success rate and identify factors that pose challenges to e-learning with a view to providing insight into their inter correlations. This study's overall research strategy entailed the use of Kendall Coefficient of Concordance (KCC) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to investigate the roles of identified factors that influence e-learning. The PCA was used to analyze data matrix generated by 12 Judges who were requested to rank the forty identified factors that influenced e-learning in merit order sequentially upon which basis an index of concordance in ranking among the judges was computed as <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$w=0.49$</tex> and the KCC further analyzed the outcomes of the questionnaires crafted with the forty well-ordered factors, purposively selected, using XL stat version 2021.2 software. The results obtained by KCC suggested that poor internet facility was the outstanding factor that hinders engineering e-learning. On the other hand, the result by PCA indicates that significant parsimony was achieved in factors reduction from forty to ten clusters. Furthermore, EL training facilities and Physical access wielding the highest factor loading of 0.948 and 0.925 respectively. This study has helped to justify unsatisfactory EL among engineering students and clarify challenges associated with engineering education in Nigeria.