The study investigated benefited from the use of ICTs in Northeastern Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 230 respondents. Data for the study were collected using interview schedule and analysed with percentages, mean and weighted score and Chi-square and PPMC at α0.05. Results show that the available ICT tools to the respondents were radio (97.4%), mobile phone (92.6%) and television (88.3%). The most perceived benefits of ICTs were keeping in touch with friends with (158.8) and provision of information on weather, disease outbreak and new agricultural techniques (141.7). However, the majority (54.3%) of the respondents had low level of benefit of ICT use. Constraint encountered using ICTs were high cost of maintenance (126.5), high call tariff (126.4) and language barrier (124.8). Significant relationship existed between respondents' age (r=-0.61), sex (χ 2 =56.50) and benefits derived from the use of ICTs. Respondents' low level of benefit derived could be due to language barrier, high cost of tariff and maintenance. Developmental practitioners should continue the use of ICTs to propagate information to target audience while high priority should be given to local language when packaging such information.
The study examined information and communication technologies usage among agricultural students of tertiary institution in Southwest of Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 300 agricultural students from tertiary institutions. Structured questionnaire was employed to elicit information on students’ socioeconomic characteristics, availability of ICTs, accessibility and purposes of ICTs usage. Data were subjected to percentage, chi-square, the Pearson Product Moment Correlation and the Analysis of variance at p=0.05. Findings revealed that the most available ICTs among students were internet and mobile phone (95.0%) respectivelywhile they had access to mobile phone (Weighted Mean (WM)=0.58) and radio (WM=0.51), they used ICTs for information (WM=0.77), academics (WM=0.70) and entertainment (WM=0.70) purposes; with high level of availability (71.0%), access (56.7%) and ICTs usage purpose (51.3%) respectively. There were significant relationships between respondents’ monthly stipend (r=0.200), state of institution (χ2=8.000), religion (χ2=222.660), marital status (χ2=211.680), category of students’ programme (χ2= 320.4608), type of institution (χ2=56.000) and their purposes for using ICTs but with a significant difference across the states (F=23.821; p=0.00). Students used ICTs for information, academic and entertainment purposes based on their age and type of their institutions. Since ICTs are used for beneficial purposes, it is recommended that ICTs should be adapted, applied and incorporated into tertiary institutions’ curricula across the nation.
Keywords: ICTs usage, undergraduate students, entertainment purposes, mobile phone, tertiary institutions.
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