IMPACT OF ICT ON STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
to the study
During the last two decades higher
education institutions have invested heavily in information and communication
technologies (ICT). ICT has had a major impact in the university context, in organisation
and in teaching and learning methods.
One puzzling question is the effective
impact of these technologies on student achievement and on the returns of
education. Many academic researchers have tried to answer this question at the
theoretical and empirical levels. They have faced two main difficulties. On one
hand, student
performance is hard to observe and
there is still confusion about its definition. On the other hand, ICT is
evolving technologies and their effects are difficult to isolate from their
environment.
There is no standard definition for
student performance. The standard approach focuses on achievement and
curricula, how students understand the courses and obtain their degrees or
their marks. However, a more extensive definition deals with competencies,
skills and attitudes learned through the education experience. The narrow
definition allows the observation of the outcomes of any change in higher
education, while the more extensive definition needs a more complex strategy of
observation and a focus on the labour market. The outcomes of education are
mainly validated in the labour market.
The impact of ICT on learning is currently in
relation to use of digital media, primarily computers and internet to
facilitate teaching and learning. ICTs are the technologies used in conveying,
manipulation and storage of data by electronic means, they provide an array of
powerful tools that may help in transforming the present isolated
teacher-centered and text-bound classrooms into rich, student-focused,
interactive knowledge environments.
To meet these challenges, learning institutions
must embrace the new technologies and appropriate ICT tools for learning. The
relationship between the use of ICT and student performance in higher education
is not clear, and there are contradictory results in the literature. Earlier
economic research has failed to provide a clear consensus concerning the effect
on students’ achievement.
Starting from this point, the aims of
this paper are two-fold: first, we summarise the main findings of this
extensive literature and second, we give two complementary explanations on the
contradictory results. Our first explanation is that most of the literature has
focused on direct effects of ICT while it is more appropriate to look at the
indirect effects through the traditional channels. Since student performance is
mainly explained by a student’s characteristics, educational environment and
teachers’ characteristics, ICT may have an impact on these determinants and
consequently the outcome of education. The differences observed in the
performances of students are thus more related to the differentiated impact of
ICT on the standard determinants.
The direct link between ICT use and
students’ performance has been the focus of extensive literature during the
last two decades. Several studies have tried to explain the role and the added
value of these technologies in classrooms and on student’s performances. The
first body of literature explored the impact of computer uses. Since the
Internet revolution, there has been a shift in the literature that focuses more
on the impact of online activities: use of Internet, use of educative online
platforms, digital devices, use of blogs and wikis, etc.
Looking at the link
between ICT and student performance seems nowadays a misunderstanding of the
role and nature of these technologies. In fact, since ICT is general purpose
technology (GPT), it needs to be specified in order to meet the needs expressed
by students and to be adapted to the local context and constraints (Antonelli,
2003; Ben Youssef, 2008). A variety of models of usages can be identified
leading to the same outcome. ICT brings widened possibilities for the learning
processes that are independent from place and space. ICT also allows more
flexible (asynchronous) and more personalised learning. It offers new methods
of delivering higher education. Taking advantage of these opportunities needs a
profound change in the organisation of the higher education system.
Economic literature in the
last decade has shown that technological change, on its own, does not lead to
any change in economic performance. Among the most popular explanations of this
paradox – huge investment in ICT without any economic performance – the
complementarity thesis seems to be the most accepted nowadays (Greenan and
Mairesse, 2004). Old methods need old educative technologies and new
technologies need new organizational innovations. There is an agreement between
researchers that the usage of ICT requires the usage of new organizational
designs and a shift in organisation. Higher education is not an exception and
needs a huge organisational change.
1.2 Statement
of problem
For many years, educational
researchers have maintained an interest in the effective prediction of
students’ academic
achievement at school. The prediction and explanation of academic achievement and
the examination of the factors relating to the academic achievement are topics of greatest
importance in different educational levels. Studies have shown that prior academic performance is an
important predictor of performance
at other levels of education. Similarly, cognitive ability was found as the
strongest predictor of academic
performance.
However, some studies confirm that the correlation between cognitive ability
and academic performance tends to
decline as students progress in the educational system.
Thus, many researchers have
emphasized the need to include non-
cognitive factors such as
personality, motivation, learning strategies and beliefs in investigations of
individual differences in academic
achievement. In other words, contemporary researchers are interested in whether
or not other individual differences than cognitive ones (for example;
intelligence, cognitive ability) may be used to predict academic achievement. The present study aims at
determining the predictors of academic
achievement of student ICT teachers (formerly called computer teachers)
with different learning styles.
The direct link between ICT use and students’ and
academic performance has been the focus of extensive literature during the last
two decades. Some of them help students with their learning by improving the communication
between them and the instructors (Valasidou and Bousiou, 2005). Leuven et al.
(2004) stated that there is no evidence for a relationship between increased
educational use of ICT and students’ performance. In fact, they find a
consistently negative and marginally significant relationship between ICT use
and some student achievement measures.
In support to these, some students may use ICT to
increase their leisure time and have less time to study. Online gaming and
increased communication channels do not necessarily mean increased achievement.
On the other hand, Abdulla Y. Al-Hawaj, Wajeeh
Elali, and E.H. Twizell (2008), state that ICT has the potential to transform
the nature of education: Where and how learning takes place and the roles of
students and teachers in the learning process.
Karim and Hassan (2006) noted the exponential
growth in digital information, which changes the way students perceive study
and reading and in how printed materials are used to facilitate study.
Based on the extended usage of ICTs in education
the need appeared to unravel the myth that surrounds the use of information and
communication technology (ICT) as an aid to teaching and learning, and the
impact it has on students’ academic performance in …………..L.G.A of …….. State.
1.3 Purpose
of the study
The main purpose of this
study was to find out the influence of ICT on students’ academic performance in
Secondary Schools in ………….L.G.A of ……. State. Specifically, the study is aim at
findings out whether;
i. ICT
has any direct effect on students academic performance.
ii. ICT as a tool for learning and students’
academic performance.
iii. ICT
as a tool for teaching and students’ academic performance
1.4 Research
questions
The
following research questions were posed to guide the study.
i. How
does ICT relate with students academic performance?
ii. How does ICT as a tool for learning
influence students academic performance?
iii. How
does ICT as a tool for teaching influence students academic performance?
1.5 Statement
of hypotheses
In
order to carryout the research effectively, the under listed hypotheses were
tested.
i. There
is no significant relationship between ICT and students academic performance.
ii. There is no significant relationship
between ICT as a tool for learning and students academic performance
iii. There is no significant relationship
between ICT as a tool for teaching and students academic performance
1.6 Research
assumptions
This
study is based on the assumption listed below:
i.
The sample population is a true representative of
the study population.
ii.
The variables under study are measurable.
iii.
The variable under study are normally
distributed.
iv.
The instrument used for data collection is valid
and reliable.
1.7 Significance
of the study
The outcome of this study aims at determining whether
or not the use of ICT has any significant influence on the academic performance
of students.
More
over education is the bedrock of any society. Nigeria as a developing nation
needs a standard secondary schools that has available learning resources, that
teachers can improvise learning resources easily and more often also where
teachers and students utilize learning resources on a regular basis. It could
be a guide line for incoming students and be educative to them when writing and
studying similar problems in school.
This
study has made me to explore into the topic influence of ICT usage on the
academic performance of students. It is also a requirement I must be produce
for the award of a degree in curriculum and teaching, faculty of education.
1.8 Delimitation
of the study
The
study was carried out in ……………L.G.A of …… State only. This study intend to study the influence of ICT on students
academic performance in secondary schools.
Only
secondary schools within …………L.G.A are studied with a sample of only six (6)
selected out of all the others in the study area.
The
study is limited to a population of twenty (20) students’ from each of the
schools.
1.9 Limitation
of study
In
the course of the study the researcher encountered certain problems. Due to
limited time and funds, the study was restricted to a particular section of ……….L.G.A
of …. State.
At
the time this research was being carried out, schools were on frequent breaks.
The researcher had to make use of the little times, met with the pupils and the
school heads.
Finance
was another issue that disturbed the execution of this project. The biting
economic situation could not allow the researcher carryout the work as fast as
it had to be done.
1.10 Definition
of terms
In
order to assist an understanding of this piece of work, the researcher have
defined the following terms in the sense of they are each used in this project.
ICT:
Performance: An action in which excellence
or superiority depend primarily on abstract mental ability. Any action
requiring the manipulation of abstracts, concepts or mental manipulation of any
sort.
Academic:
Influence:
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