Information and communication technology adoption and electronic information resource usage among university-owned senior secondary school students in southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Electronic information resources (EIRs) usage by students involves accessing and utilizing electronic sources and services for knowledge acquisition, entertainment and learning purposes. However, extant literatures have shown that most of the students in Nigeria do not use these information resources adequately. Previous studies focused largely on accessing and utilisation of IRs among students in tertiary institutions with little emphasis on secondary school students, particularly those in university-owned secondary schools. This study, therefore, was carried out to examine the adoption on EIRs usage among students in Federal university-owned senior secondary schools in southwestern Nigeria. The survey design of ex post-facto type was utilised. The university-owned senior secondary schools from five federal universities in southwestern Nigeria were purposively selected. Six hundred and seventy- four Senior Secondary School II students in the five schools were enumerated. The instruments used were: Information Communication Technology Adoption (r=0.70) and IRs Usage (r=0.77) scales. This was complemented with a focus group discussion session with 10 students in each school. Quantitative data were subjected to descriptive analysis, Pearson’s product moment correlation at 0.05 level of significance, while qualitative data were thematically analysed. The respondents’ age was of 16.0±2.0 years, 50.6% were males and 68.1% were from the sciences. The ICT adoption level was high ( ̅=2.90) against 2.50 criterion mean. Information resources were used on a regular basis within the interval of 26-50 on the test of norm table. The sources of accessing the IRs were Internet (85.4%), mobile phone (77.8%), television (71.5%), e-books (50.9%) and educational software (49.1%). The ICT adoption (r=0.58), correlated significantly with IRs usage. ICT adoption predicted IRs usage (F(3;670) =24.26; Adj. R2=0.366), accounting for 36.6% of its variance. The ICT adoption (β=0.52) contributed to IRs usage. Instability of network services, information overload, inadequate technical support and restrictions of ICT tools use were challenges facing IRs usage among the students. Information and communication technology adoption influenced information resources usage among students of university-owned senior secondary schools in southwestern Nigeria. Therefore, there is need for the provision of functional and effective network services and enactment of flexible rules on information and communication technology tools.