Utilization of ICTs in students' assessment: a field report of competencies of university lecturers in Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The use of ICTs in constructing, administering assessment tasks and supporting students to learn and teachers to teach at different levels of education is becoming more and more popular. Digital devices help to break the distance/space barriers and delays that are common with the traditional assessment of students in providing feedback and grades to students. The purpose of the present study was to find out university lecturers' competencies in utilizing ICTs for students' assessment in Benue State, Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive survey design to investigate competencies of University lecturers in the utilization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for students' assessment in Benue State, Nigeria. The population was 1542 university lecturers in Benue State composed of 1115 males and 427 females from Benue State University Makurdi, University of Mkar and University of Agriculture, Makurdi. A total of 308 lecturers were selected using simple random sampling technique. Of this number, 223 were males and 85 were females. The instrument used in data collection was Lecturers' ICT Competency in Students' Assessment Questionnaire (LICTCSAQ), which was developed by the researchers. The questionnaire was validated by two experts in the Department of Computer Science and one specialist in Computer Science Education from Benue State University, Makurdi. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was established using Cronbach alpha and it yielded an index of 0.91. The questionnaire copies were administered by six lecturers (research assistants) in the three universities in Benue State. The data collected were analyzed using means and standard deviation for answering the two research questions. To aid interpretation, any item with a mean score within the range 0-1.49 represented Not Competent (NC), 1.50-2.49 was for Partially Competent (PC), 2.50-3.49 was for Highly Competent (HC) 3.50 and above was regarded as Very Highly Competent (VHC). The hypothesis was tested using t-test at 0.05 level of significance. Findings were that lecturers demonstrated low competency in the utilization of ICTs for students' assessment. Also, no significant difference between male and female lecturers' level of competency in utilizing ICT facilities for students' assessment was observed. It was recommended that training should be organized for lecturers to enhance their competency in utilizing ICTs for assessment of students in the universities.