Barriers To The Use Of Information And Communication Technologies In Teaching And Learning Business Education

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.