ASSESSMENT OF POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS’ USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTH-EAST NIGERIA: A STUDY OF ZOOM CLOUD APPLICATION AND E-LIBRARY

Abstract

Postgraduate students in state and federal universities in Nigeria are expected to make frequent use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support their coursework, assignments, learning, and other academic activities. This study investigated the extent of ICT utilization among postgraduate students in public universities in the South-East zone of Nigeria. It addressed two research questions and tested two hypotheses. The study employed a descriptive survey design. The population comprised 17,651 postgraduate students drawn from ten public universities (five state-owned and five federal) accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to offer postgraduate programmes in the South-East for the 2023/2024 academic session, excluding the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), which does not run education programmes. A sample of 2,896 postgraduate students was determined using Taro Yamane’s sampling formula. Data were collected with the instrument titled Extent of Postgraduate Students’ Utilization of Information and Communication Technology for Academic Purposes Questionnaire (EPGSUICTFAPQ). The instrument was validated by three experts and its reliability established through Cronbach's Alpha, yielding coefficients of 0.890, 0.940, and 0.849 across the five clusters. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation, while the null hypotheses were tested using an independent samples t-test at a 0.05 level of significance with the aid of SPSS version 26. Findings revealed that postgraduate students in both state and federal universities make considerable use of computers and other ICT tools for academic purposes. Additionally, a significant relationship was observed between salary and teachers’ job performance. Based on the results, the study recommended that public universities in Nigeria (both state and federal) should provide adequate and functional ICT facilities, such as computer systems and CCTV devices, to enhance postgraduate students’ academic engagement.