Appraising the level of competence, awareness and readiness of students in using ICT for learning in a distance learning environment

Abstract

In Nigeria and some other countries of the world, improving students’ ICT competency and awareness has become a pedagogical issue. Accordingly, education on ICT competency and awareness is becoming popular in institutions of learning. However, determining a student’s ICT readiness, awareness and competency level is germane to the success of teaching and learning using ICT tools. Consequently, this study has developed tools for measuring the level of students’ ICT competency, awareness and readiness in learning. This research is necessary because using ICT for instruction has gained remarkable popularity in recent times. Nigeria is not left out in this euphoria of using ICT for instruction. The major focus of this paper is to investigate the level of awareness, readiness and competencies for the use of ICT for instruction by Faculty of Education, University of Ibadan distance learning students. Distance learning programmes and the use of ICT for its facilitation and enhancement is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria, hence the need to measure the level of compliance of students in order to aid the institution under study to make policies that would help in achieving the goals of using ICT for instruction and learning. A questionnaire was randomly distributed among the distance learning students of the faculty and results of the study revealed that majority of the respondents have little or no knowledge of application of ICT to learning. The study also revealed that a great percentage of students were not exposed to the usage of ICT and as such limited in its use in learning. It is recommended that the Curriculum should include the use of ICT as a course from the first year to the final year of study, the course content should include advance skills as from the second year; and it should be made compulsory to enhance the students’ ICT skills.