Perception of Nigerian Lecturers on Usefulness, Ease of Use and Adequacy of Use of Digital Technologies for Research Based on University Ownership

Abstract

This paper investigated the perception of Nigerian lecturers on usefulness, ease of use and adequacy of use of digital technologies for research based on university ownership. The use of digital technologies for research in the 21st century for ease and access of information cannot be underscored irrespective of lecturers’ university ownership. The study was descriptive of survey type using structured questionnaire to elicit response from the respondents. A total of 742 respondents were drawn purposively from 13 public comprising state and federal universities in South-west, Nigeria. The research instrument was validated by 3 educational technologists and the reliability indices of r=0.92, 0.85 and 0.83 using Cronbach Alpha was attained on perceived usefulness, ease of use and adequacy of use of digital technologies respectively for research at 0.05 level of significance. Frequency counts, means and percentages were used to answer research questions 1-3, while 3 research hypotheses were tested using independent t-test statistical instrument. The finding revealed that lecturers in the federal government owned universities exemplified high perception on the usefulness and ease of use of digital technologies. However, lecturers from state government owned universities perceived adequacy of use of digital technologies for accomplishing research task effectively with minimum error. The study among others provision of institutional support, procurement of needed digital technologies and internet facilities, seminars, workshops and trainings to all university lecturers on usefulness, ease of use of newer digital technologies and skills to possess in accomplishing research task effectively with minimum error; irrespective of university ownership.