Perception, access, and use of electronic resources for instructional practices among education lecturers in public universities in Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

Electronic resources are an indispensable tool for meaningful instructional engagement and academic practice. Therefore, educators at all levels of education especially in the university must leverage it to engage in research and create a classroom environment that is motivating, engaging, and personalised to meet the needs of the present generation of learners who are digital natives. The perception, accessibility, and use of these e-learning resources could impact university lecturers’ academic and instructional practices. Therefore, this study investigated the perception, accessibility, and usage of electronic resources for instructional practices among education lecturers in public universities in Niger State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey was adopted for this study. All education lecturers in the three public universities in Niger State form the population of the study and 102 university education lecturers were selected as the sample size using simple random sampling. Three research questions guided the study. The data were collected using structured questionnaire on university education lecturers’ perception, accessibility, and use of e-resources for instructional practices. The instrument was validated by experts in the field of education and psychometrics, thereafter, the instrument was pilot-tested, and using Cronbach Alpha, the instrument yielded a reliability coefficient of between 0.70, 0.76, and 0.72. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation. The findings showed that education lecturers have positive perception of e-resources for instructional practices. However, there was low level of accessibility of e-resources among education lecturers in the three public universities in Niger State. The results also indicated high level of use of e-resources among lecturers. It was recommended conducive environment should be provided and more e-resources are made available, while regular workshop and training the organized for lecturers for academic and instructional practices respectively.