Enhancing ICT in Education: Evaluating its Roles and Perceptions in Tertiary Institution

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have widely gained acceptance over the years by students, lecturers and institutions, thus playing various roles in teaching and learning processes in tertiary institutions. These roles ICTs play in learning environments have a relationship with their perceived usefulness thus acceptance. This then became the basis for identifying the prevalent roles and underlying student perceptions which necessitated usage of ICTs in a tertiary institution. The study used a survey conducted on samples chosen from the student population engaged in ICT-related courses (forming a total of 180 students) in the conveniently selected tertiary institution. The self-administered questionnaire for collecting data from the sample contained 8 open-ended and 2 close ended questions. The statistical method used for the study was a one way ANOVA and the data was analysed using SPSS. Results showed that students tend to use specialized software more often than internet, computer system and handheld devices. It also revealed that students use the internet for communication, learning and research more than other mentioned ICTs. The results also showed that students had positive perceptions about the use of ICTs in their academic activities and processes. This suggests that the reception is favourable for the integration of more ICTs in the school learning environment. Additionally, from the study, it is concluded that the internet services should be made more accessible to students. Furthermore, it suggests tertiary institutions subsidize the cost of handheld devices for students to encourage their usage.