Impact of information communication technologies (ICTs) on career advancement of women in academics

Abstract

Advancement in one’s chosen career has a fundamental impact on individual’s efficiency and job productivity. Apart from that, it also promotes actualization of dreams, empowerment and visibility at the echelon of one’s chosen career. To that extent, this study unraveled the visible impacts that the use of ICTs could have on career advancement of female academia especially in these days of information explosion. The research design adopted for the study is survey; through a case study of University of Lagos, 3 faculties within the university constituted the study population (faculty of arts, education and science). Total enumeration technique was applied to sample all female lecturers in the 3 faculties totaling up to 144. Instrument of data gathering was questionnaire and out of the 144 administered, 104 were returned and found analyzable. Findings revealed that the most applicable ICT facilities to female academia’s job is the computer systems (58.7%) and the internet connectivity (51%), Also, out of the several ICT based activities investigated, the most applicable was information retrieval activity (53%). Greater number of the population under study was competent in those areas of ICT use that were basically useful to their job schedule. This has in turn impacted some routine academic activities especially research and publication activity (71.4%) and research collaboration among colleagues. Though some of the major challenge of ICT use included, power outage (46.2%), lack of internet connectivity (48%) and inadequate maintenance of ICT equipment (48%), Hypothesis 1 tested that there was no significant difference in the use of ICT among women academics in the faculties (P value is >0.05). Also, hypothesis 2 carried out a two tailed test correlation on the variables of ‘ICT use’ and ‘ICT impact’. The correlation was tested and the result showed a significant correlation meaning there was a significant contribution of ICT use to career advancement of female academia.

Keywords: career advancement, women, academics, information communication technology