USING TECHNOLOGY AS A STRATEGY FOR INSTRUCTIONAL METHOD IN HIGHER EDUCATION FOR POST COVID- 19 INNIGERIA

Abstract

This study examines the role of technology-based instructional method to achieve the goals of higher education in the face of COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aimed at investigating the effectiveness of instructional technology in higher education institutions in relation to the role and usage of Information Communication Technology (ICT), its effectiveness in faculty teaching and its impact on student learning in universities in the post- COVID-19 in Nigeria. This study applied the Need Assessment Approach (NAA). A self-designed questionnaire, that employed benchmarks from similar studies conducted in the West, was used to collect data for this study. One hundred and twenty-five (n = 125) respondents participated in the study. The results suggest that there are significant relationships between the impact of instructional technology, the usage of instructional technology and students’ academic achievement. An absence of ICT instructional materials, ineffective policy implementation and a lack of other resources (infrastructures) to aid teaching and learning are responsible for short comings in the effective implementation of ICT in education in the post- COVID-19. Even though technology presents higher education with challenges - ranging from planning of technological enhancements to educational programmes as technology changes so quickly and unpredictably; and especially for a nation like Nigeria that will be venturing into the use of technology for education newly; and also, the challenge of funding of technologies for educational applications for higher institutions of learning in the post- COVID-19. The paper concluded that the inability of government tertiary institutions to teach students remotely during the pandemic will have effects that will take some time to eradicate. The study recommended that the government need to increase funding for higher education in the post- COVID-19. Management of higher education need to glean insights from other climes to be able to develop a suitable technological tool for teaching and learning in the nation’s higher education system such that our higher education could once again become a springboard for achieving an effective system that will produce employable graduates.