TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD THE USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

     Attitude is an important concept in social judgment and behaviors and thus, is one of the most important concepts in decision making (Venkatesh and Morris, 2003). As a result, a lot of research on the attitude of both students and teachers towards the use of ICT in teaching and learning had been done with outcome being either positive or negative. For instance, Becta (2004) reported that negative attitude was a barrier towards integration of ICT in teaching and learning while Rhoda and Gerald (2000) found that positive attitudes towards ICT use are widely recognized as a necessary condition for effective computer use in teaching and learning.

Similarly, study findings by Kubiatko and Halakova (2009) pinpointed that attitude towards use of ICT in teaching and learning in learners was as a result of its impact. According to Selewyn (1999), integration of ICT in education environment depends, to a great extent, on teachers and student attitude towards their use. This view is supported by Slouti and Barton (2007) findings which indicated that ICT can motivate students in their learning by bringing variety into the lessons and at the same time sustaining teachers own interest in teaching. Myers and Halpin (2002) asserted that attitude of both students and teachers towards ICT use was a major predictor of future classroom use. It therefore appears that teachers’ and students’ attitude may influence adoption of ICT in teaching and learning.

Use of ICTs such as computer technology and internet is intended to enable teachers to facilitate learning more effectively and enhance students’ understanding of concepts which are expected to translate into expansion of Knowledge and improved examination outcomes. Today, humanity can be classified as living in a “machine society’ where technological tools are predominant at different levels, interfacing in the day-to-day activity of man (Anthony, 2000). These livelihood activities constitute and deliver economic, social and political benefits and potential risks to the survivability of nations especially developing nations, of which Nigeria is a prominent player. Introduction of information communication technologies (ICT) into education in European countries was at the end of 1970’s and at the beginning of 1980’s. For the first time, ICT was accepted as a subject of education. Only later, it was understudied as an educational tool. The European commission published the plan “Learning in the Information Society” in 1996. The plan included four aims:

       i.            To support the creating of electronic networks among schools,

     ii.            To support the preparation of teachers for using ICT,

  iii.            To provide information about possibilities of using ICT,

  iv.            To support the development of multimedia tools in education (Information and Communication Technology in European Education Systems, 2001).

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Human Capital have become the centre of gravity and indeed the heart of sustainable National Development and in particular for structured education, advanced knowledge and intelligence activities, product development, manufacturing techniques as well as organisational financial and management systems all of which are the cornerstone of global competition through automated globalisation (Valasidou and Bousiou-Makridou 2008).

Information Communication Technology have also enabled more efficient, information centred management and contributed to the breakdown of the bureaucratic/industrial organisational model. Both public and private sectors are downsizing and flattening the hierarchy centric to this development cycle is its embedded opportunities, benefits and techno-crime related high risks. It has been demonstrated that Information Communication Technology can provide opportunities to change traditional practices and that the introduction of Information Communication Technology can often change the accepted social distribution of power within organisations and Nation (Becta, 2003). This is why the interfacing relationship of Government and Citizens, through technology must be systematically understood, strategically organised, constantly examined, tracked, monitored and managed for sustainable development of national resources and survivability of the sovereignty.

The shift towards knowledge work has accelerated the rise of the services sector, creating new work opportunities. Reduction in constraints of time and distance have enabled outsourcing, as well as various forms of Tele-work, either within or outside organised work units, to generate an increasing proportion of national wealth. Tele-work offers, at least in theory, the opportunity to work from geographically isolated communities as easily as from urban areas and is seen as a means of reducing trends towards urbanisation, particularly movements of young people from rural communities (Castells, 1996).     .

There is hardly any aspect of modern living that does not require the use of information technology. It is significant that in the developed world the conscious or unconscious tragedy has been to ensure that the average home has at least one personal computer (Ahmed and Abdulaziz, 2004). Consequently, even the young once are trained to remain ahead of other children by relating to computer technology as the second nature (Hassan, 2003). Indeed, the computer has become a basic tool, rather than leisure for solving life's problems. Hence, information technology help to simplify and easy communication on public formation categorically the use of Internet, satellite, and cellular mobile network etc. all Federal Government. Ministries, Departments, Interdepartmental Agencies and Commissions are all online. Information Communication Technology has become a veritable instrument of world politics. The nation of the world with high technological powers tent to control the less technologically advanced once. This is evident when we observed the activities of the G7 nations and the United Nation Security Council (Amins, 1990). Only nations which can hold their own technological are the members of the UN Security Council. A country with little technological track records stands dwarfed in today's world politics (Amin, 1990)    

Education is not only limited to teaching the students according to prescribed syllabus as a specific school level. It has much border objectives, goals and other concepts. Thus, education is becoming an increasingly important tool to combat poverty and to establish a modern nation. Feature of modern society is the penetration of information technologies in all spheres of life, including schooling. In general, the new technologies have been recognized to play a valuable role in developing and improving the teaching and learning situations.

The world is changing. The last few decades have seen a dramatic rise of technologies within the field of education, and it was known by terms such as teaching or/and instructional aids. Teaching and instructional aids include the use of slide projector, television, radio, audio and video cassettes, etc, in the teaching and learning situations. The integration of technology in the process of teaching and learning is thought by many researchers and to increase student and teacher productivity as well as to make vast amounts of information available.

Bena and James (2001) claim that there are three reasons for investing in technology:

(1) To increase students ability and interest in applying authentic settings, what district and states have identified as learning and tasks that students should know and able to do;

(2) To prepare students for success in a technology centered world of work, and;

(3) To prepare students to manage and use information so they can be productive lifelong learners and responsible citizens.

Furthermore, integrating technologies in learning classrooms has been shown to promote teachers and students’ performance and motivation.

Information and Communication Technology therefore has brought about globalization.  Globalization therefore, has to do with processes by which different human communities and nations become integrated in one single system called global village. Therefore, whether as a historical process or as an ideological construct, globalization brings about greater interaction between countries, and between peoples all over the world. Tomlinson (1996), defines it as "a rapidly developing process of complex interconnections between societies, cultures, institutions and individuals worldwide. It is a social process which involves a compression of time and space, shrinking distances through a dramatic reduction in time taken - either physically or representational to cross them, so making the world seem smaller and in certain sense bringing human beings 'closer' to one another".

The possibility of compression of time and space in the interrelations has only been achieved through the pivot of technology, specifically the information and communication technology (ICT). People don't have to move to get where they want to go. Money doesn't have to be taken to the markets and virtually all- aspects of our life have been electronized through technology of the cyber space, so much so that the entire people in the world are being subjected to become gradually living under one system called globalization. Friedman (1996), sees it as "the loose combination of free trade agreements, the internet and the integration of financial markets that is erasing boarders and uniting the world into a single lucrative, but brutally competitive market place,"

Thus, globalization reduces the world into an integrated system of market; where international trade is considered to be the major engine of economic growth, and should therefore be facilitated (Anthony, 2014). This facilitation is achieved through trade liberalisation, necessitating the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers. In addition, states are to withdraw from social provisioning by privatizing state social service organizations, which only left states with the role of creating a conducive atmosphere for private sector-led development. In concrete terms, globalization presents itself as the breaking down of national barriers in terms of trade, flow of information and capital, and in terms of ownership of key industries. Multinational corporations are increasingly displacing local ownership in key and dynamic sectors of national economies (Thomas, 1996).

What then is the role of Information and Communication Technology in this process? At one level, the Information Communication Technology provides the pathways with which the world is brought together, conquering both time and space. At another, the Information Communication Technology also link up the new manufacturing outposts of the transnational corporations in the south to their markets in the North. The technology of e-commerce means an easy and speedy movement of capital in the every form of market. One of the pillars of globalization is international trade in services. In the past, a country or firm offering these services in another country must had to either be physically located in the country that it wants to offer the services or set up a local representative, usually, a subsidiary, where operations were subject to national policies. Now with Information and Communication Technology, these services are being offered in a wider scope online. Electronic banking, online education, telemedicine, data processing etc are the deliverables through which the WTO's General Agreements on Trades in services (GATs) is being operationalized (Cooper and  Brna, 2002).

Upon this background, this research is an attempt to explore the significance of teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward the use of information and communication technology a case study of secondary schools in Ijebu North Local Government Area of Ogun State. Since Information and Communication Technology has become the fundamental pillar in the current era of globalization, it has become imperative in every form of discourse concerning globalization.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is largely responsible for the tremendous changes in our educational sector for the last few decades. The computer, a major component of ICT, is a tool that has singularly and dramatically continued to change the behaviour patterns of efficient and effective management of teaching-learning to a very large extent, teachers and students by determining the way teaching and learning takes place particularly in developed countries. Yet, up till now, it has been difficult to effect full scale implementation of computer literacy programmes at the basic education levels in Nigeria.

The unique place of instructional materials as integral component of curriculum and instruction has traditionally been grossly misunderstood and correspondingly neglected. This is evidenced by the different phrases used to describe them and some of these are: “teaching aids”, and “audiovisual aids” and “apparatus”. However, with the electronic evolution of the field brought about by the involvement of different interest groups such as educational technologists, curriculum development specialists, management specialists, educational psychologists, educational evaluators, and researchers coupled with the incursion of technological products, the earlier phrases used to describe instructional materials have failed to adequately describe them.