Factors Influencing Information and Communication Technology Use by Women Research Scientists in Universities of Agriculture in Nigeria

Abstract

Information and communication technology (ICT) is a veritable tool for sustainable agricultural development in  Nigeria. This paper analyzed the factors that influenced ICT use by women research scientists in the Universities of  Agriculture in Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 40 respondents per university from a  population of 300 women research scientists across the three universities. This gave a total of 120 women scientists for the study. Data were generated using questionnaire and presented with descriptive statistics and Logit  regression. Major findings show that the mean age of the respondents was 40 years 77% were married with mean  household size of 4 persons, while a good number (46%) possessed MSc degree. The respondents spent between  1-4 hours in accessing ICT while, Global System of Mobile Communication (x̅=3.49) and use of modem (x̅=3.27)  were most preferred channels of ICTs used. Respondents’ educational level (0.190), primary assignment (0.151),  year of working experience (0.097) and training on ICT (0.315) were significant and positively related to ICT  uptake, at 1% level of probability. Respondents’ major challenges in accessing ICT were time (x̅ =3.27), Network  error (x̅= 3.08) and too many family problems (x̅= 3.08) respectively. The study recommends that researchers  should restructure their work schedule to accommodate ICT practice and use in order to enhance ICT use.

Keywords: Factors of ICT uptake, Use of ICT infrastructure by research scientists.