An Assesment of Internet Utilisation in Selected Agricultural Colleges in Plateau State, Nigeria
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AN ASSESMENT OF INTERNET UTILISATION IN SELECTED AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES IN PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA
by
* Akpokodje, Edore T. MInf.Sci, + Akpokodje, Vera MInf.Sci.
*Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology,
P.O. Box 1, N.V.R.I., Vom, Plateau State, Nigeria.
e-mail: eakpokodje@yahoo.com
Tel.: 07035052210
Corresponding Author
+ System Unit, University of Jos Library, Plateau State, Nigeria.
e-mail: veraforlive@yahoo.com
Tel: 08036357386
ABSTRACT
The study investigated the patterns of Internet use among students of agriculture in some selected colleges of agriculture in Plateau State, Nigeria. A well structured questionnaire was distributed among the 128 HND students of agriculture in colleges of agriculture in Plateau State. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 17.0.1 was used in analysing the data. The present study demonstrates and elaborates the various aspects of Internet use such as; most frequently used place for internet use, purpose for which the Internet is used, use of Internet services, problems faced by users and satisfaction level of users with Internet facility provided in the colleges. The study results revealed that 78.1% of the respondents use the Internet for research, 45.3% access the Internet at a cyber café, slow access speed is the major problem faced by users(48.8%), students between the ages of 20 to 25 years of age spend more time on the Internet than other age categories(43.8%), majority of the respondents utilized the World Wide Web service of the Internet (50.8%) and there is significant association (perfectly positive relationship) between Internet facility, awareness and Internet use. Some suggestions have been put forth to make the service more beneficial for the academic community of agricultural colleges under study.
Key words: Internet Utilisation, Agriculture, Agricultural Tertiary Institutions
INTRODUCTION
In the era of information technology the Internet; the world wide network of networks has emerged as the most powerful tool for an instant access to information. Information is now just a finger touch distance away from users and it would not be inappropriate to say that the Internet has become the biggest digital information library which provides the easiest access to information for end users at any time and at any place in the world. The Internet has become the most extensively used information source that empowers the average person. Today’s users can no longer depend on conventional information sources to cope with the latest developments in their respective fields.
According to Isonic (2010), the Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio and computer has set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a world-broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard to geographic location (Isonic, 2010).
Technological evolution began with early research on packet switching and the Advanced Research Project Agency Network (ARPANET) grew into the Internet. Since then the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commence.
The Internet has emerged as a powerful education tool, with the increasing impact of information and communication technologies on higher education, all those concerned with higher education need to grasp how ICT could help in modernizing the process of teaching, learning and research.
Agriculture production is becoming ever more dependent on Information Technology (IT) (Efita, 2010), although, it is relatively easy to adopt. The exposure presence of the Internet on the Information and Communications Technology(ICT) scene and the rapid adoption of Internet supported activities have created a wide range of opportunities and expectations in Agricultural production. Farmers have more information on how to manage their farms. Furthermore, farmers go into marketing their agricultural products through the Internet and they also have access to the market where they can purchase the recent equipments and machines that can aid them in agricultural production. They also have access to information about new chemicals such as pesticides, insecticides and herbicides and how to obtain them cheaply thereby maximizing their profit.
Effective adoption of the Internet for extension in agriculture is challenging despite substantial investment in human capital and other resources. A lot of benefits such as updated and comprehensive information reach the end users and farmers have access to new methods of agricultural practices.
Today in agricultural tertiary institution (universities, colleges of agriculture and monotechnics) the Internet is playing a vital role in imparting technical knowledge in the area of agricultural teaching and research. Students of tertiary institutions require the latest information in the field of agriculture. In the developing countries like Nigeria, students suffer from in adequate access to information facilities, which will aid in their research, cross pollination of ideas and interaction with other relevant organizations and research centres in the field of agriculture.
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Agricultural production is becoming dependent on Information Communications Technology (ICT) use for agricultural studies and agricultural extension. The relevance of the Internet in modern agriculture in terms of accessibility cost and how Internet services are used among students needs to be studied.
AIM OF THE STUDY
The study is aimed at determining the patterns of Internet use among students of colleges of Agriculture.
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
1. To ascertain the level of accessibility to the Internet among students of Colleges of Agriculture.
2. To identify the purposes of Internet utilization among students of Colleges of Agriculture.
3. To find out the obstacles to Internet access and utilization among students of Colleges of Agriculture.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The ever increasing number of people accessing the Internet coupled with recent explosion of information resources on the Internet may have considerable implications on teaching, learning and research. This study is therefore an attempt to assess the effectiveness of the Internet as an educational tool and what role it actually plays in the educational system with special reference to agricultural colleges. The Internet is an inseparable part of today’s agricultural education system, it is therefore important to find out to what extent it’s services are utilized by students for agricultural education purposes and the challenges to access and utilization.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This research study will be restricted to ascertaining the level of accessibility of the Internet by the students of agriculture, cost incurred in Internet utilization and determining the constraints to Internet utilization among students.
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This research will not be carried out in all Colleges of Agriculture in the Plateau State due to constraints of time and money.
AREA OF STUDY
This study will be carried out in some selected monotechnics and colleges of agriculture in the Plateau state of Nigeria that were duly approved by the National Board of Technical Education (NBTE).They are: 1. Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology, NVRI, Vom. 2. Federal College of Forestry, Jos 3. Federal College of Land Resources Technology, Kuru, Jos.
METHODOLOGY
In an attempt to achieve the objective and the purpose of this research, the researchers have collected information from different sources. The researchers of this project gathered information from two (2) main sources. They are the primary and secondary source. Questionnaire method has been employed to collect the data for the present study for the students of HND1 and HND 11 in three (3) Colleges of Agriculture in Plateau State. Sixteen respondents were selected randomly from each programme of the colleges, eight respondents each from HND I and HND II. The respondents were divided equally into male and female where possible. Accordingly, 8 HND programmes were used and 128 questionnaires were administered from three (3) Colleges of Agriculture. The secondary source of data refers to information that is already processed by other researchers at various times and at different places. This information sources include the Internet, textbooks, Journals, Seminar papers, Magazines, Handbooks and New papers. Data from the sources of information of this research will be analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 17.0.1).
RESULTS
Table1: Demographic profile of the students and response to college Internet facilities.
Variable value count percent
Respondents FCAH&PT 48 37.5
Land Resources 32 25
Forestry 48 37.5
Sex Male 91 71.1
Female 37 28.9
Programme HND 1 62 48.4
HND 11 66 51.6
Age Less than 20 years 7 5.5
20-25 years 36 43.8
25-30 years 37 28.9
30 and above 28 21.9
Connection Yes 92 71.9
No 36 28.1
Source: Field survey, (2010)
Table 1 shows that 37.5% of the respondents are from the Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology and 25.5% from the Federal College of Forestry and the Federal College of Land Resource respectively.
The result also shows that 71.1% of the respondents are male and 28.9% of the respondents are female. The survey of the results also show that 5.5% are less than 20 years and 43.8% are between 20-25 years and 71.9% of the respondents said their college is connected to the Internet.
Table 2: Table showing where students access the Internet
Variable Value Frequency Percent
Place At college 54 42.2
At home 10 7.8
Cyber cafe 58 45.3
Other places 6 4.7
Source: field survey, (2010)
Table 2 shows that most students (45.3%) access the Internet in cyber cafes, followed closely by their college’s computer centre (42.2%). The home is the least place (7.8%) used by students to access the Internet.
Table 3: Table showing the purpose for which the Internet is used
Variable Value Frequency Percent
Purpose Research 100 78.1
Entertainment 1 0.8
Communication 2 1.6
News 2 1.6
General information 23 18
Source: field survey, (2010)
Table 3 shows that most students (78.1%) use the Internet for the purpose of research. This is followed by general information (18%), then by communication and news with 1.6% respectively. The least purpose for the use of the Internet by the students is for entertainment (0.8%).
Table 4: Table showing the cost of Internet access
Variable Value Frequency Percent
Cost N2000 and above 19 14.8
N1000 and N2000 20 15.6
N500 and N1000 27 21.1
N500 to below 49 38.3
Nothing 13 10.2
Source: field survey, (2010)
Table 4 shows most students spend N500 and below to access the Internet (38.3%). Followed by those who spend between N500 and N1000(21.1%), then by those who spend between N1000 and N2000 (15.6%), then by those who spend N2000 and above (14.8%). Those who spend nothing on Internet access are the fewest (10.2%).
Table 5: Table showing the services used
Variable Value Frequency Percent
Service Email 39 30.5
Face book 14 13.3
World wide web 65 50.8
Others 7 5.5
Source: field survey, (2010)
Table 5 shows that most students use the World Wide Web (50.8%), followed by the E-mail service (30.5%), then Face book (13.3%). 7.7% of the students use other services.
Table 6: Frequency and percentage of problem of using the Internet
Problem Frequency Percent
Problem slow access speed 74 57.3
Difficulty in finding relevant information 22 17.1
Overload of information on the Internet 5 3.9
Privacy problem 5 3.9
Cost of access to the Internet 18 14.1
Others 4 3.1
Source: field survey (2010)
Table six shows that most students (57.3%) implicated slow access speed as the major problem in using the Internet. This is followed by difficulty in finding relevant information (17.1%) then by cost of access (14.1%). Also, 3.9% of the respondents implicated lack of privacy when accessing the Internet and overload of information on the Internet respectively. Lastly, 3.1% of respondents implicated other problems.
Table 7 : One sample t-test of difference between respondents in terms of access to Internet facilities.
Variable Mean std std error m t df sig. md
Computer 1.02 .152. .013 76.236 127 .000 1.023
Connection 1.28 .451 .040 32.114 127 .000 1.281
Source: field survey (2010)
The table shows that there is a no significant difference between respondents in terms of access to Internet facilities.
Table 8: Correlation of Internet use and sex, education, age and Internet facilities.
Variable Value Decision
Sex -0.149 Negative relationship
Education -0.47 Negative relationship
Age -.074 Negative relationship
Internet facilities 1.000 perfectly positive relationship
The table shows that there is a Negative relationship of -0.149 for sex, -0.47 for education, and -0.74 for age this shows that sex, age and educational level do not determine students Internet usage, while there is positive relationship between Internet facilities and Internet use, which means that availability of Internet facilities determine the rate of Internet use by the students.
DISCUSSION
Our results support the existing research that reveals a significant association among students to Internet utilization. The result shows that 71.1% of the respondents are male and 28.9% of the respondents are female. A high percentage of 71.1% of the respondents said their college is connected to the Internet. There is a negative relationship of -0.149 for sex, -0.47 for education, and -0.74 for age. This shows that sex, age, educational level are not determinants of Internet usage i.e. your age, sex and educational qualification do not determine how, where and for our long you use the Internet. These findings agree with the work carried out by Banmarke (2007), which said that there is no significant association between the age ,gender, level of study and use of Internet .
This research agrees with the work carried out by Banmarke (2007) which shows that 59.6% of the respondents were within the ages of 21 to 25 years majority of whom access the Internet. The result shows that most people (45.3%) access the Internet from cyber cafes.
There have been rapid advances in Internet use by students of agriculture. The students mostly use the Internet for research; this is comparable to previous studies. Kumar and kuar’s, (2005) study revealed that most students use the Internet for education. Most students spend money in other to have access to the Internet (89.8%). This is not comparable to Kumar and kuar’s( 2005) study which showed that most of the students access the Internet at their colleges free of charge.
Furthermore, the World Wide Web is the most popular of the Internet services used by the students; this is because most of the students use the Internet for research (project). This is not comparable to previous studies where email use was high (76.4%) in University College Hospital Ibadan, in selected departments of the Faculty of Agriculture , University of Benin city, Nigeria and Engineering Colleges of Punjab , India.
Despite the usefulness of the Internet to students of agriculture in the colleges under study, there are constraints to the use of the Internet. This study revealed that most of the students (57.3%) implicated slow access speed as the most serious problem to Internet utilization. This result agrees with Kumar and Kuar’s (2005) study which revealed that the most common problem faced by majority of the respondents is the delay in retrieving relevant information while surfing the Internet.
Summary
Data was collected from 128 students of HND programmes in some colleges of agriculture in Plateau State. There is a significant association (perfectly positive relationship) between Internet facility, awareness and Internet use. Research (78.1%) is the main purpose for Internet utilization.
The result also shows that most respondents accessed the Internet at a Cyber cafe ( 45.3%) followed by their colleges Internet facility (42.2%), at home (7.8%),and other places(4.7%). The service mostly utilized is World Wide Web (50.8%) followed by Email (30.5%), Facebook (13.3%) and others services (5.5%). The major problem faced by users is slow access speed ( 57.3% ) , difficulty in finding relevant information (17.1% ) , cost of access to the Internet (14.4%), overload of information on the Internet ( 3.9%), privacy problem ( 3.9 %), and others (3.1%).
The Internet facility has enabled the students to enhance their academic excellence and provide the latest information and access to world wide information. Students in the colleges of Agriculture in Plateau State, Nigeria have not fully utilized these new technologies.
Conclusion
The Internet facilities have enabled the students to enhance their academic excellence by providing them the latest information and access to world wide information. The present study has highlighted the existing situation of the Internet facilities and it’s utilization in the Colleges of Agriculture in Plateau State. The situation is not, however satisfactory from the respondents point of view. The information on the Internet is not usually available in an organized way and the users are unable to pin point information from the Internet. Although the Internet is an important source of agricultural information, the students in the colleges of agriculture in Plateau State, Nigeria have not fully utilized these facilities.
Recommendation
Based on the findings in the study, the following recommendations which will help improve the use of the Internet among the academic community and for future research were proffered:
- The time given to students to access the Internet service in their colleges should be increased; if possible the services should be offered 24 hours a day so that users can maximize utilization of this service.
- Some printers should be installed in Internet sections of the colleges, so that respondents can get print-outs of their study materials and other important documents at nominal rates.
- More Internet facilities should be provided for students.
- Internet facilities should be separately provided for lectures.
- More efficient technical staff should be engaged and they should be present in the Internet section for expert advice.
- All the colleges should have their own website, so that users can easily get the academic news and these websites should be regularly updated.
- Research should be carried on the comparative study on patterns of Internet use among the colleges, different types of user’s behaviour, comparison of user’s behaviour and attitude toward the Internet and patterns of Internet use among teenagers and secondary school students.
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