ABSTRACT
This study investigated the use of internet by final year
university undergraduates of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma. A descriptive
survey research design was adopted and questionnaire was used for data
collection. The sample for the study was drawn from the population through
multi-stage sampling whereby three (3) faculties were randomly selected and
thereafter a total sample size of 250 students was drawn using random sampling
techniques. A total of 232 copies of the questionnaire were retrieved and
analyzed using tables, percentages and frequency counts. Findings showed that
majority of respondents indicated that internet facilities are available
(93.5%) and accessible (84.9%) to final year undergraduates. It was also
discovered that majority of the respondents access the internet at home (88.8%)
for academic and research-related activities such as downloading of educational
resources (82.3%) and socializing with friends (89.6%). Finally, it was
revealed as indicated by majority of the respondents that inadequate
computers/internet facilities in departmental computer laboratories (86.6%),
difficulty in locating relevant information resources (78%), poor internet
speed (73.7%) are among the challenges facing the use of internet by final year
university undergraduates. It was recommended that internet facilities be
provided for use in computer laboratories and that educational policy formulators
and curriculum developers incorporate the use of internet into the university
curriculum. Finally, the need for information literacy skills to be taught as a
course and with a focus on information retrieval was advocated.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background
of the Study
In this age of Information
and Communication Technology (ICT), the use of the Internet has become the order
of the day. According to Audu (2001), the internet has many benefits in the
academic cycle, providing timely access to sources of information. These
sources of information are very useful to students in tertiary institutions in general
and the final year students. In particular, especially since it is not possible
for school libraries to stock every physical information resource they would
ever need to support their academic pursuit as well as their research efforts.
The
Internet is a network of hundreds of thousands of computers all over the world,
connected in a way that lets other computers access information from them. So
if a computer is connected to the Internet, in principle, it can be connected
to any other computer on the network. Today, the Internet comprises more than
45,000 regional, national and international networks, which connect more than
30 million people in over 200 countries. The networks include organizations,
schools, universities, companies, governments, groups and individuals (Gray,
1999).The Internet began in 1969 as ARPANet (Advanced Research Project Agency
Network) by the United States Department of Defense to share military
intelligence and research with university sources. The Internet has since the
1990s become a widely-used civilian tool for communication, research,
entertainment, education and advertisement (Hinson and Amidu, 2006).
The
Internet is a network of linked computers which are located at different points
all over the world that provides easy communication between persons and
organizations no matter where they are located (Ani, 2005). Evidently, Shitta
(2002) sees the Internet as a communication super highway that links, hooks and
focuses the entire world into a global village, where people of all races can
easily get in touch, see, or speak to one another and exchange information from
one point of the globe to another. It is the largest network in the world that
allows computer users to communicate and access electronic databases with ease.
The Internet is not a single network of computers but a network of networks, a
large network that connects many smaller networks to one another (Nwafor and
Ezejiofor, 2004).
The
history of the Internet has long been linked to university education. This is
because the adoption of the Internet in university system has intensified
access to information and communication by providing un-reserved access to
e-mail messages, web boards, online services and e-publications. In practice,
much of the recent focus of technological development in Nigerian Universities
has been concerned with promoting the use of the Internet as a teaching and
learning tool. Internet is appealing to Universities for a number of reasons:
it reduces the time lag between the production and utilization of knowledge; it
promotes international cooperation and exchange of opinions; it furthers the
sharing of information; and promotes multidisciplinary research.
Internet
allows wide range of materials to be accessed by people across the globe
irrespective of their location. Internet is an information resource medium that
allow access to a wide range of materials from around the world to a local
machine (Otunla, 2013). It is also a publishing medium which allows access to a
large pool of information which was not possible in the past, thereby reducing
the information gap between the students in developed and developing countries.
It is user friendly, fast and enable access to information from anywhere around
the world with no time limitation. Apart from using internet to obtain academic
information, it also allows students to socialize with friends and family.
Today, Internet has become a tool that many students cannot do without because
they can read and listen to news, watch video, chat with family and friends,
send and receiving mails and do many other things.
Although,
the Internet is used mostly in obtaining information and there are other benefits
that are derivable from its use such as social networking, interaction,
collaboration, file sharing and transfer, etc., its major functional advantage
stems from the willingness its users to share information with one another so
that everyone might benefit. Daramola (2004) maintains that an observable trend
in the Internet is that more and more resources are moving to it and in some
cases being made available only in the Internet. This trend makes it impossible
for students of tertiary institutions to succeed in their academic pursuit
without ever needing the internet to a large extent.
The
use of internet is now popular among undergraduate students. The internet
offers many benefits which include access to information twenty-four hours a
day, seven days a week, that is, all the time, which was not possible before;
enables one to work from any location; availability and accessibility of
diverse resources that one cannot find in a library; up-to-date information,
fast and more convenient than the library; a good supplement to library
resources, to mention a few. Studies have found out that Internet use is
beneficial to final year undergraduate students (Hong, Ridzuan and Kuek, 2003;
Omotayo, 2006; Awoleye, Siyanbola and Oladipo, 2006).
It
can be said that the Internet is one of the new technologies that support and
promote the technological revolution that has taken place in education. This is
because, since the Internet‘s infancy, higher education institutions have
pioneered many innovations (Cookson, 2000). According to Daniel (1996),
Information technologies integral to the Internet have allowed higher education
to:
i.
expand access to education and training,
ii. raise
quality,
iii. lower
costs, and
iv. increase
cost-effectiveness
1.2
Statement
of the Problem
The use of the internet for research and
studies in universities is now a thing of necessity, and having access and a
positive attitude toward the use of the Internet is a necessary condition for
its effective use. The Internet is very useful in obtaining information for
research as well as resources for the purpose of academics. So, the usefulness
of the internet cannot be overemphasized.
An assessment of previous studies on the
use of the internet by university undergraduates revealed that these studies
placed too much emphasis on use of the internet for interaction with friends
and peers and its effect on their academic performance rather than on the use
of internet for academic purposes. Even so, there is a gap in knowledge as
regards the use of internet by final year students as a subset of the whole
university student population, as research outputs focusing on the use of
internet by final year students of universities are scarce and almost
non-existent. The present study seeks to fill this gap in knowledge.
1.3
Objectives
of the Study
The overall objective of this research
is to study the Use of the Internet by Final Year University Undergraduate
Students of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma. The specific objectives are:
i.
To determine the extent of accessibility
of the internet to final year university undergraduates
ii. To
determine the extent of usage of the internet by final year university
undergraduates.
iii. To
identify the purpose for which the internet is used by final year
undergraduates.
iv. To
establish the kind of information final year undergraduates search for on the
internet
v. To
identify the most frequently used internet search engines by final year
university undergraduates.
vi. To
identify the challenges faced by final year university undergraduates in the
use of the internet.
1.4
Research
Questions
i.
What is the extent of accessibility of
the internet to final year university undergraduates?
ii.
What is the extent of usage of the
internet by final year university undergraduates?
iii.
What are the purposes for which the
internet is used by final year undergraduates?
iv.
What kind of information do final year
undergraduates search for on the internet?
v.
What are the most frequently used
internet search engines by final year university undergraduates?
vi.
What are the challenges faced by final year
university undergraduates in the use of the internet?
1.5
Scope
of the Study
This research work is restricted to the
use of internet by final year undergraduate students of Ambrose Alli
University, Ekpoma, Edo State.
1.6
Significance
of the Study
So much has been written and said about
the usefulness and importance of the internet to students of all levels in
general and tertiary level in particular and these usefulness and importance
cut across several areas like social networking, collaboration, interaction,
file sharing, etc. to say the least, the internet is a major support to the
resources any academic library has in its collection as students can always
benefit from the former, where the latter lacks the specific resources that are
needed and because the internet is more easily accessible in most cases. But it
should also be noted that not all stakeholders know the extent to which the use
of internet will benefit students generally and final year students in
particular.
Therefore, this study is will be of immense
benefit to education policy makers, undergraduates, lecturers as well as
researchers involved in similar or related research efforts. For education
policy makers, the study seeks to identify how and what final year
undergraduates as a subset of university undergraduates use Internet, thereby
serving as a basis for the inclusion of Internet as a course into schools’
curriculum. For the undergraduate students, the study will highlight the
different areas in which Internet can be used both for academics and in their
everyday lives thereby exposing them to resources they may not have come across
with. For lectures, findings from this study will be an eye-opener, exposing
what undergraduates students do on the internet and enabling the academics to
help guide the students in ensuring that their use of the internet is useful
both academically and socially through inclusion in course works. Finally, for
researchers, this study hopes to present useful information to serve as
literature for review thereby help them position their own studies in line with
their perceived gap in knowledge.
1.7 Limitation of the Study
The only limitation faced by the
present study is the fact that the study focused only on final year
undergraduates in Ambrose Alli University and as such, during data collection,
other level of undergraduate students as well as final year undergraduates
other universities were excluded. Therefore, findings and conclusions from
study may not show the exact situation of use of Internet by undergraduates in
other universities in Nigeria.
1.8 Operational Definition of Terms
Undergraduate: A university student who has not yet obtained a first degree.
Internet: A global computer network providing a variety of information
and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using
standardized communication protocols.
Research: The systematic investigation into and study of materials and
sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.
Academics: of or relating to a college, academy, school, or other educational institution, especially
one for higher education
Accessibility: The quality or characteristic of
something that makes it possible to approach, enter or use it.
Search engine: A program that searches for and identifies items in a
database that correspond to keywords or characters specified by the user, used
especially for finding particular sites on the World Wide Web.
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