Business Educators’ Attitude towards the Use of Whatsapp in Teaching during COVID-19 Pandemic in Colleges of Education in Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the attitude of business educators in the colleges of education in the South-East Nigeria towards the use of  WhatsApp in teaching business education courses during the Covid-19 pandemic. The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan China  which later turned into a pandemic necessitated the adoption of e-learning as a way of keeping students engaged in academic activities  during the lockdown. This compelled many institutions to adopt one form of e-learning or the other. A descriptive survey design was  employed in the study. The sample comprised all 159 business educators in the seven public colleges of education in the zone. One research question guided the study and two research hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance. A 13 items instrument titled  Business Educators’ Attitude towards the use of WhatsApp in Teaching Questionnaire (BEATUWTQ) was used to collect data for the study.  Data collected for the study were analysed using mean scores and standard deviations to answer the research question whereas  independent samples t-test was used to test the hypotheses. Findings revealed that business educators have positive attitude towards  the use of WhatsApp in teaching. Furthermore, there was significant difference in attitude towards use of WhatsApp in teaching based on  gender and ownership of institution. Females have more positive attitude than males and business educators teaching in federal  colleges of education displayed more positive attitude than their counterparts the state colleges of education. It was recommended  among others that regular workshops and seminars be organized periodically to acquaint the Business Educators with the development  and emergence of new e-learning technologies.