Principals’ ICT Management Ability as Predictor of Teachers’ Technology Integration in Public Secondary Schools in Anambra State

By:

Okafor, Judith Nneka

Email: srnnejokafor@gmail.com

Prof. Nwogbo, Vivian Ngozi

Email: vn.nwogbo@unizik.edu.ng

Department of Educational Management and Policy, Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate Principals’ ICT management ability as predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Correlational survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 5,286 teachers in the 263 public secondary schools in Anambra State. A sample of 528 teachers was drawn using proportionate sampling technique. Two sets of instruments titled: Principals’ Technology Leadership Questionnaire (PTLQ) and Teachers’ Technology Integration Questionnaire (TTLQ) were used to collect data from the respondents. Data collected were analyzed using simple regression analysis. Findings revealed that Principals’ ICT management ability of support is a moderate and significant predictor of teachers’ technology integration, while Principals’ ICT evaluation ability is a strong and significant predictor of teachers’ technology integration. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that Principals need technology competence and skills to provide ICT facilities and support services for effective ICT programmes in schools in order to increase teachers’ technology integration in the school.

Keywords:  Principal, ICT management, technology integration

Introduction 

The use of communication as a medium of passing information from one person to another has been viewed as an important tool for managing change and innovation in organisations. The era of technology is a big change in the proactive way of doing things in the 21^st century. When this changes in information and communication technology are integrated into education, it produces knowledge and skills required for improvement in the educational system with impact on the society in general (Williams, Uchendu and Mbon, 2014).  However, teachers need to use ICT to enhance their teaching effectiveness. Thus, there has to be availability of prudent management of ICT resources by school principals and ensuring proper utilization of these resources to boost teachers’ technology integration. The proper management of ICT facilities in schools of learning is very paramount for execution of activities by the school personnel especially the teachers. 

Surbhi (2015) defined management as an act of planning and organizing people and their work, for achieving a common goal by using the organizational resources. The major activities performed by management include planning, organizing, controlling, coordination and decision-making. Management in ICT entails effective planning, organization, selection, support, assessment and training of human resources and managing the application of best available technologies for achieving the institutional goal and that of the learner. According to Nwizu (2016), management of ICT facility requires proper planning to serve as a hub upon which the transmission of knowledge is based. It is a process of determining ICT requirement that will ensure and enhance quality achievement of learning outcome. This will necessary serve both the students and the teacher to achieve the objective of the programme. The initial effort in outlining ICT plan is to determine the type of ICT apparatus that will be able to reach the students and be accessible to them.

Similarly, Oluyemesi (2015) stated that school principals are saddled with the responsibility of managing ICT in schools for the realization of educational goals, hence the need for management of ICT facilities such as computers, aiding the provision of internet services, projector, fax machine, interactive digital white boards, online zoom, video conferencing classes where students watch lecturers at home on the computers and smart phones, powerpoint slides among others to improve teaching effectiveness and students’ learning outcome. Besides, the overwhelming influence of ICT and social media in all facet of human life is so alarming. All life activities are connected to ICT and social media to the extent that whoever is not in the use of any type of ICT will appear (analogue) not to be moving along with the trend of the 21^st century. The era of technology is a big change to the proactive way of doing things in the 21^st Century.

In furtherance, Oluyemesi (2015) defined information and communication technologies (ICT) as those high-tech digital and electronic innovations and facilities that enable accessing, analyzing, processing, management and communication information over long distance. Also, it is a diverse set of technological tools and resources used to transmit, store create, share or exchange information which include computers, internet, live broadcasting technologies (radio, television, webcasting) recorded broadcasting technologies (podcasting, audio and video players, storage devices) and telephone and satellite technologies.  In agreement with the above, Ogonnaya (2017) defined ICT as an electronic technologies used in the creation, collection, storage, processing, retrieval, transmission of information between individuals for the benefit of human race. Therefore, management of ICT simply means planning, organizing and supporting the use of technology facilities to achieve an effective learning goal. Thus, principals should harness the integration of ICT facilities to support the operation and achieve the objectives of the entire programme.

Akuegwu, Ntukidem, Ntukidem and Jaja (2013) argued that the integration of ICT in teacher training programmes is vital in that teachers will gain knowledge in the use of ICT in teaching. That the knowledge-driven nature, powered by information and communication technology, has made the use of information and communication technology second to none in ensuring quality instructions in the schools. This means that ICT can be used by teachers to improve instructional activities at various levels of education. Hence, the ICTs, such as computers, internet facilities, video computer disc, and close circuit television among others increase the productivity of teachers. Therefore, there are factors that are involved in principals’ ICT management ability: ICT support ability and evaluation ability.

ICT support ability of a principal according to Akuegwu, Ntukiden, Ntukidem and Jaja (2013) entails having needed technology skills and changes aimed at maximizing learning achievement and goals through the supply and use of technology and mass media resources. It involves the process of providing support services for effective ICT programmes in schools such as videos, televisions, computers, ICT laboratory, and overhead projectors. Similarly, principals should utilize strategic partnerships to support comprehensive improvement, creating and maintaining a robust technology infrastructure, including integrated and manageable technology systems to support management, operations, teaching and learning exercise. This is to ensure that subject teachers can easily have access to ICT tools whenever needed.

ICT evaluation ability of principals is key element that ensure attainment of instructional outcome in learning experience. Thus, ICT evaluation ability of the school principal is the capacity of the principal to successfully assess ICT programmes in school. Evaluation of ICT can be in form of observing teachers use ICT to teach students, rating teachers’ ICT utilization and providing feedback to stakeholders who will be interested in knowing the extent at which their objectives have been achieved. Every principal is therefore expected to adopt appropriate evaluation ability to effectively assess the effects of use ICT on teaching and learning exercise. Nevertheless,  the competence factor plays an important role in the integration of ICT in the teaching and learning activities, whereby the competence of the user (teachers) are said to be balance with the integration in classroom exercise.

According to Charania, (2011), technology integration is when the electronic devices are fit in comfortably with the curriculum or instructional plans of teaching and learning exercise. Thus, technology rather than an additional layer in the classroom is embedded within the design of the teacher’s lesson plan and the pedagogy. Besides, in this approach, the teacher designs learning activities and students use technology to construct their own learning.  For instance, students use technology for seeking information, construct and organize their learning and represent it through computer applications. Thus, the teacher plays a role of a facilitator.

However, it has been observed that some principals lack ICT management ability to either support the integration of ICT in teaching and learning activities or evaluate the use of ICT by teachers. This is because principals do not show readiness to learn to become technology leaders in their various schools, while some do not have interest to become competent ICT managers. Some principals do not know how to access emails, online interactive classroom, and video conferencing or to integrate the use of scratch cards to check results by the student. This ICT non competent of the principals affects the goal attainment of schools. A typical example is during the outbreak of corona virus pandemic that brought a total lockdown of schools. Principals were advised to use different technology facilities to connect students to teachers in order to maintain on-going teaching and learning activities. It was expected that principals should work with their computers to ensure that the gap created by the lockdown was filled with ICT and online administration, but the reverse was the case. Despite the level of awareness, there were perceived attitude of computer phobia and withdrawal approach in the use of computer in administration. It is common experience today among the principals of the continued use of paper and pen in disseminating information on their school notice board. Most at time official information are mutilated or misplaced. This is very embarrassing and sort of worry that this kind of issue are still being witnessed in public secondary schools in Anambra state, when many formal organization have left analogy system to e-administration. This necessitated the need to investigate principals’ ICT management ability as predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary school.

Purpose of the study

The study investigated principals’ ICT management ability as predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra state. Specifically, the study sought to: 

1. Find out the predictive value of principals’ ICT management ability of support on teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State.
2. Determine the predictive value of principals’ ICT management evaluation ability on teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State.

Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study.

1. To what extent can principals’ ICT management ability of support predict teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State.
2. What is the extent of prediction of principals’ ICT management evaluation ability on teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra state?

Hypotheses 

The following formulated null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance.

1. There is no significant prediction of principals’ ICT management ability of support on teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra state.
2. There is no significant prediction of principals’ ICT management evaluation ability on teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra state.

Method

A correlational survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study is 5,286 teachers in the 263 public secondary schools in Anmbra state. Proportionate stratified sampling technique was adopted for the study. The state public secondary schools were divided into six strata and the six education formed the six strata. Ten percent of the total number of each strata was sampled, given a total of 528 teachers as sample of the study. The administration of the instruments was carried out with the help of six research assistants. 528 copies of questionnaires were used for the study. The data for the study was collected using the two sets of instruments titled: “Principals’ Technology Management Questionnaire” (PTMQ) and “Teachers’ Technology Integration Questionnaire” (TTIQ). Principals’ technology management instrument was divided into two components that are collapsed. First component contained items on principals’ ICT support, and principals’ ICT evaluation item. The second set of the instrument is “Teachers technology integration questionnaire that contained 40 items. To establish the reliability of the instrument, the questionnaire was tested using twenty teachers outside the study area. The reliability indices for two components of principals’ technology management questionnaire were 0.80 and 0.72 respectively. The reliability index for teachers’ technology integration was 0.86. The overall coefficient of (PTMQ) was 0.82, while that of teachers was 0.86. Thus, the researcher considered the instrument to be reliable and fit for administration. This is in line with the view of Nworgu (2015) who posited that Cronbach Alpha is a good statistical tool for testing internal consistency of an instrument that have homogenous not dichotomous items and who also recommended that a co-efficient value of 0.70 and above is adequate for a research instrument. The data collected were analyzed using simple regression analysis. Muijs’ (2004) cited in Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007, p. 523) suggestion for assessing the goodness of fit of regression model using squared regression coefficient (R²) was adopted for the research questions. Where: 0 – 0.1 = weak, 0.1- 0.3=modest, 0.3 – 0.5 = moderate, > 0.5 = strong. For the hypotheses, p-value was used to determine the significance of the prediction. Where the calculated p-value is less than the stipulated level of significance (0.05), the null hypothesis was rejected. Whereas the null hypothesis was not rejected where the calculated p-value is greater than the stipulated level of significance (0.05)

Results 

Research Question 1: To what extent can principals’ ICT management ability of support predict teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State?

Table 1. Summary of Simple Regression Analysis with Principals’ ICT management ability as Predictor of Teachers’ Technology Integration

	R	R2	Adj.R2	B	SE B	β
Constant	.63	.40	.40	67.08	2.31	.63
Principals’ ICT management ability of support				2.43	.12

Data in Table 1 indicates that principals’ ICT support is a moderate predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State. This is shown by the regression coefficient (R =.63) and the coefficient of determination (R² = .40) which indicates that principals’ technology support explained 40% of the variance in teachers’ technology integration.

Research Question 2: What is the extent of prediction of principals’ ICT management evaluation ability on teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State?

Table 2. Summary of Simple Regression Analysis with Principals’ ICT management evaluation ability as Predictor of Teachers’ Technology Integration

	R	R2	Adj.R2	B	SE B	β
Constant	.82	.68	.67	43.74	2.02	.82
Principals’ ICT management evaluation ability				4.45	.43

As shown in Table 2, principals’ ICT management evaluation ability is a strong predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State. This is shown by the regression coefficient (R =.82) and the coefficient of determination (R² = .68) which indicates that principals’ evaluation explained 68% of the variance in teachers’ technology integration.

Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: Principals’ ICT management ability of support does not significantly predict teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State.  

Table 3. Test of Significance of Simple Regression Analysis with Principals’ ICT management ability of support as Predictor of Teachers’ Technology Integration

	R	R2	Adj.R2	B	SE B	β	t	F	P
Constant	.63	.40	.40	67.08	2.31	.63	28.95	362.98	.00.00
Principals’ ICT support ability				2.42	.12		19.05		.00

The analysis in Table 3 shows that the simple regression coefficient (R) is .63 while the R² is .40. The F-ratio associated with these is 362.98 and the P-value = .00, since the P-value is less than the stipulated 0.05 level of significance, it was decided that Principals’ ICT support ability is a significant predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State. The null hypothesis was therefore rejected.

Hypothesis 2: Principals’ ICT management evaluation ability does not significantly predict teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State.  

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Table 4 Test of Significance of Simple Regression Analysis with Principals’ ICT Evaluation Ability as Predictor of Teachers’ Technology Integration

	R	R2	Adj.R2	B	SE B	β	t	F	P
Constant	.82	.68	.67	43.74	2.02	.82	21.65	1117.29	.00.00
Principals’ ICTevaluation ability				4.45	.13		33.42		.00

The analysis in Table 4 shows that the simple regression coefficient (R) is .82 while the R² is .68. The F-ratio associated with these is 1117.29 and the P-value = .00, since the P-value is less than the stipulated 0.05 level of significance, it was decided that Principals’ ICT evaluation ability is a significant predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State. The null hypothesis was therefore rejected.

Discussion of Findings

The finding of this study indicated that principals’ ICT management ability of support is a moderate and significant predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State. This finding is in support of Rogers (2000) who examined the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of principals’ technology leadership and their use of technology in the classroom and found that teachers who stated that their school principals exhibited a supportive role in terms of provision of ICT technology for use in the classroom were more likely to integrate technology into their courses. In line with this, Hughes and Zachariah (2001) pointed out that when principals provide and make ICT facilities as well as other support services available for effective ICT programmes in schools, teachers’ technology integration in the school improves.

The study also revealed that principals’ ICT evaluation ability is a strong and significant predictor of teachers’ technology integration in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Evaluation of ICT is the ability of school principals to successfully assess ICT programmes in their schools in form of observing teachers use of ICT to teach students, rating teachers’ ICT utilization and providing feedback to stakeholders who will be interested in knowing the extent at which their objectives have been achieved. The finding of this study supports that of Papa (2011) who found that school principals’ ability to observe and rate teachers’ ICT use in the classroom improves teachers’ ICT performance. This finding is not supported by Lafont (2011) that teacher’s technology integration cannot be predicted by Principal’s ICT evaluation. The finding of this study also contradicts Page-Jones (2008) who proved that there is no relationship between technology leadership and the use of technology by teachers in schools. The reason for this contradiction may be attributed to the location where these studies were carried out. The study by Lafont (2011) and Page-Jones (2008) were conducted outside Nigeria and that may have influenced the contrary findings.

Conclusion

Based on the findings of the study, the researcher concludes that Principals’ ICT management ability of support is moderate and significant predictor of teachers’ technology integration, while Principals’ ICT evaluation ability is strong and significant predictor of teachers’ technology integration. 

Recommendation

            Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made:

1. Principals need technology competence and skills to provide ICT facilities and support services for effective ICT programmes in schools in order to increase teachers’ technology integration in the school.
2. The study also recommends that for teachers to embrace and implement educational technology in accomplishing the intended learning outcomes, principals must be able to successfully assess ICT programmes in their schools by observing teachers use ICT, rating teachers’ ICT utilization and providing feedback on the extent at which their objectives have been achieved.

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