Influence of ICT Adoption on Tertiary Education: Investigating ICT Usage in E-learning Context among Nigerian Students

Abstract

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been employed in various fields of human endeavours, especially to engender socio-economic development. One key sub-sector in which the adoption of ICTs is increasingly becoming critical is the farm-based (agri-based) enterprises. This study was prompted by the urge to determine the critical factors that affect ICT usage in e-learning by students of post-secondary schools.  The concept of e-learning, through the application of information and communication technology (ICT) has been increasingly attracting the attention of researchers. Recent studies found that there is quite a number of factors that affect students’ adoption (usage) of ICT for learning purposes. However, students’ expectation toward effort-free (easy-to-use) ICT hardware and software has been singled out as one of the major factors that becloud their perceptions of adopting ICT in their academic activity. In addition, the literature has highlighted that students’ ICT adoption expectancies in e-learning context is influenced by their prior experience and inexperience (e.g., anxiety). This study therefore, was prompted by the urge to determine the effect of ICT usage expectancies and prior usage experience (via-a-vis inexperience) on tertiary institutions students’ ICT adoption in e-learning context. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model was adopted and a pre-tested and validated questionnaire was administered to 400 students that were randomly selected in Yobe State University Damaturu, in Nigeria.  The study found effort expectancy explains about 80% of the variance in ICT usage, and only prior experience moderated the relationship significantly and positively.

Keywords: Effort Expectancy, Experience, e-Learning, Tertiary Institutions, ICT Usage, the UTAUT