Perceived Impact of the Use of Internet Resources on Undergraduate Students’ Academic Achievement in Mathematics: Implication for Physics and Engineering Teaching

This study was carried out to investigate the perceived impact of the use of internet resources on undergraduate students' academic achievement in Mathematics and its implications for Physics and Engineering teaching. The study employed a descriptive survey research design usinga sample of one hundred (100) undergraduate students (52 males and 48 females). The sample comprised 60 pure Mathematics students and 40 Mathematics Education students. The Instrument used for data collection was titled "Questionnaire on the Impact of the Use of Internet Resources on Academic Achievement in Mathematics" (QIUIRAAM) structured on a four-point Likert scale. The research instrument was validated by three experts. Cronbach Alpha technique was used to ascertain the internal consistency reliability of the items of the instrument and a reliability index of 0.815 was obtained. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while t-test of independent samples was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that academic-oriented use of internet resources positively impacts on undergraduate students' achievement in Mathematics. The findings also showed that there was no significant difference in academic-oriented use of internet resources for learning Mathematics concepts between undergraduate students in pure Mathematics and those in Mathematics Education. The study also found that there was no significant influence of gender on undergraduate students' use of internet resources for learning Mathematics concepts. This finding implicates Physics and Engineering teaching at University level in that the use of internet resources in the teaching of Physics and Engineering courses by the lecturers will lead to improved performance of students in physics and engineering since Mathematics is closely related to Physics and Engineering. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that internet resources should be made adequately available in Universities through collaborative efforts of the University authorities, policymakers, government, and non-governmental organizations.