ICT COMPETENCY NEEDS OF LECTURERS ON THE USE OF SOFT WARE AND INTERNET FACILITIES IN POLYTECHNICS IN NORTH-EAST ZONE OF NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated ICT competency needs of lecturers on the use of software and internet facilities in polytechnics in North-East Zone of Nigeria. Two research questions were answered and two hypotheses tested. Descriptive survey research design was used in which a 27-item structured questionnaire was employed to collect data from a randomly drawn sample of 324 lecturers from the nine polytechnics in the Zone, spread across three colleges, namely, College of Science and Technology, College of Engineering Technology and College of Administrative and Business Studies. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. The F-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that lecturers teaching in polytechnics in the North-East Zone needed ICT competencies in application softwares such as editing materials, opening a new document in Microsoft, setting up a data base, using spread sheets, setting up a power point presentation, sorting out and filtering data. The lecturers also needed ICT competencies in Internet facilities use such as creating an email, sending and receiving email, accessing material on the web, downloading and saving a material on the net, use of search engines, chatting on the net using yahoo and google. The study also found that no significant differences existed among the three groups of respondents regarding soft ware’s and Internet facilities competency needs. The study recommended for adequate training of the lecturers, increased funding and supply of ICT facilities, as well as concerted effort on the part of the lecturers to pursue ICT training, especially in the areas of software and Internet facilities use.