NCE Students' Attitude to Computer Aided Learning: A Study of Business and Computer Students in (North-Central) Nigerian Colleges of Education

Abstract

Information and Communication Technology(ICT) has transformed to indispensable infrastructure for all-round development of countries. Use of Computer Assisted Learning (CAL)by students is increasing, especially in developed countries. This is especially true in distance education. Education delivery in Nigerian Colleges of Education is yet toregister significant progress in the use of Computer assisted learning. This study examines the attitude of Business Education and Computer Education students of Colleges of Education(in the North-Centralzone of Nigeria) on use of CAL.The research is composed of learning-methods-comparison experiment, which was conducted on Business Education and Computer Education students in Federal College of Education, Kontagora, and a survey, which was conducted on students infour Colleges of Education in the North-central Nigeria. The experiment was used to study the performance of Business and Computer students with respect to CAL usage. Collected test data was analyzed using mean, standard deviation and t-statistics. Result shows that while Computer students' performance was significantly higher with use of CAL for learning than with use of book the performance of Business students was not significantly different. In the survey, 182 students drawn from four colleges responded to 26-item questionnaire on students' attitude to CAL. Mean, Standard deviation, t-test, F-test, and ANOVA statistics were used to analyze the collected data. Results show that majority of students have positive disposition to CAL. Also, while there were significant differences between male and female students as well as between Business Education and Computer Education students on attitude to CAL usage, no significant differences were found based on college differences. Factors identified as contributing to low level of CAL usage in the colleges include: Unfavorable disposition of government to Colleges of Education in Nigeria, and poor funding of Colleges. Among recommendations made is that: Colleges of Education should be well funded and equipped to enable use of CAL and other e-learning technologies in vogue for more effective education delivery in Nigerian colleges of Education.