Availability and application of information and communication technology for educational research in the post-COVID-19 era

Abstract

The paper is centred on availability and application of information and communication technology for educational research in the post-COVID-19 era. A descriptive survey research design was employed for the study. The study was carried out at two tertiary institutions in Rivers State with 84 final year students (45 males and  39 females) in the department of computer education. Three research questions guided the study, with two hypotheses formulated and tested at a 0.05 level of  significance. The instruments used for data collection were a checklist of computer peripheral devices and a questionnaire. The reliability coefficients were obtained  through Cronbach Alpha, with values of 0.82, 0.80 and 0.86 for different sections of the instruments. A simple percentage rating was used to ascertain  the availability of items in research question one. The mean and standard deviation were used to analyse research questions two and three, while the hypothesis  was tested with z-test statistics. The major finding showed that the application of information and communication technology in educational research after the  COVID-19 pandemic was high. Associated with these findings were the online programmes going on as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown restriction in tertiary  institutions. It was recommended that awareness programmes on ICT tools and their applications in educational research should be made compulsory for  students. Also, ICT tools should be made available and accessible to students in order to avoid crowding in school programs.