An Empirical Survey of Technology Application in Teaching Geography in Nigerian Secondary Schools

Abstract

The main thrust of this study was to find out the extent of application of the new technologies in teaching and learning Geography in secondary schools in Nigeria. The present study is very important and necessary because many teachers are still very apprehensive about using the new technologies in instruction. In addition is the fact that, there are little empirical data on the level of preparedness and the extent of utilization of ICTs in instruction in Nigerian secondary schools. This study was therefore carried out to provide empirical data on the extent of the integration of the new technology in teaching and learning Geography in Nigerian Secondary
Schools. The study employed the descriptive survey design. The sample for the study is made up of 214 Geography teachers drawn from secondary schools in Osun State. The schools and the teachers were selected through stratified sampling techniques based on school types, location, Local Education Area and gender. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants. It was divided into five sections and was validated using construct validity. The co-efficient of reliability was 0.68. The findings showed that 55% of Geography teachers had access to computer but did not have the pre-requisite ICT skills. Out of the modern technologies available for teaching Geography, the most commonly used are: instructional television (54%), instruction radio (59%) and video (59%).Other findings showed that 54% of Geography teachers do not know the instructional value of CDROM/ interactive web packages available free for teaching Geography. Not only this, 84% of the teachers also rarely use the news groups .While 42% rarely make use of multi- media presentation in teaching Geography. Where as many of these facilities are available free on the web for teachers use. Lastly, lack of skills and cost of utilization ranked highest as one of the factors preventing teachers
from using the new technologies in teaching Geography.

KEY WORDS Information and Communication Technologies, Multi-media, instructivist/constructivist approaches, Internet, news group