AVAILABILITY, ACCESSIBILITY AND TEACHING COMPETENCE IN THE USE OF ICT FOR BIOLOGY CURRICULUM DELIVERY: TOWARD IMPLEMENTATION OF E-EDUCATION IN EDUCATION FOR ALL

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AVAILABILITY, ACCESSIBILITY AND TEACHING COMPETENCE IN THE
USE OF ICT FOR BIOLOGY CURRICULUM DELIVERY: TOWARD
IMPLEMENTATION OF E-EDUCATION IN
EDUCATION FOR ALL
BY
Dr. G. A. Ikitde
&
NsimeneAbasi Michael Udoh
Science Education Department
University of Uyo, Uyo
08027175043
nsimikudoh@yahoo.com

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Abstract
This study investigated the availability, accessibility and the level of teaching competence in the
use of ICT resources in Akwa Ibom State public secondary schools for biology curriculum
delivery. The objective of this study was to investigate the integration of ICT based instruction in
teaching and learning of biology in Akwa Ibom State secondary schools. The study adopted the
descriptive survey research design. It was conducted in Uyo Local Government Area. From the
population of 74 biology teachers, a sample size of 50 teachers was drawn using simple random
sampling technique in Uyo local education committee. Instrument used for data collection was a
researcher’s made questionnaire of 30-item on the state of availability, accessibility, and the level
of teachers’ competencies in the use of the new technology (Computer simulation) for biology
curriculum delivery. The instrument was standardized by experts. Spearman Brown coefficient
Formula (rtt) was used to determine the reliability with coefficient of 0.85. The data were analyzed
using frequency counts and percentage responses. The findings revealed that modern ICT
resources are not available in schools, and the few that are available are not accessible to the
biology teachers. Again, most biology teachers are not computer literate and showed low level of
Computer operational skills in the use of Computer simulation. Based on the findings, it was
recommended among others that; the government and all stakeholders should organize in-service
Computer literacy programmes for serving biology teachers for adequate learning competencies
on the use of Computer simulation.
Introduction
The role of ICT in learning is becoming one of the most important and widely discussed
issues in contemporary education policy (Thierer, 2000). Computer simulations as an ICT
resources are software programmes that mimic real world phenomena is highly valued in the
learning process because it performs various functions which according to (Gokhale, 2006)
concretize learning experience; stimulate and motivate the learners, promote interaction, make
learning more appropriate for the learners, promote retention and transfer of learning. Experts in
the field of education are of the opinion that when computer simulation is properly used, it holds
great promise to improve teaching and learning in addition to shaping workforce opportunities.
Studies have shown that computer simulations can: be equally as effective as real life, hands-on
laboratory experiences in teaching students scientific concepts (Choi and Gennaro, 2007), enhance
the learning achievement levels of students (Betz, 2006), enhance the problem solving skills of
students (Gokhale, 2006), foster peer group interaction (Bilan, 2002), and enhance creativity
(Harkow, 2006). This has gingered strong desire to have schools integrate, equipped with ICT
facilities and qualified personnel necessary to produce technologically proficient and efficient
students in Nigeria especially now that JAMB UTME is building 2015 registration centres that
have been officially accredited by the examination body. According to the body, the 2015 Unified
Tertiary Matriculation Examination registration will not be done in Cyber Cafes as people were
used to but ICT/CBT centres will be used for application and registration.

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Again, the National Policy on Information Technology (FRN, 2004) promoted the
integration of ICT resources at every level of education for all to play leading roles in contributing
to national development through high level manpower training and individual’s intellectual
capabilities development. This will help bridge gaps in course appraisals of contents, enrich
existing curriculum and replace teacher-dominated instruction. These laudable goals need to be
incorporated in the curriculum using different ICT resources for meaningful attainment of
educational objectives. According to Onwioduokit (2013), the teaching and learning of biology in
Nigeria has been an issue of considerable research. Despite the urgent need for a good output in
the performance of students in the subject, the reverse is the case as students’ performances
continue to deteriorate year after year and not much could be said to have been achieved going by
the report of students poor performances at West African Examination Council ((WAEC), 2009 -
2012) in ordinary level biology. From the foregoing, it implies that more efforts have to be put in
place in order to improve upon the teaching and learning of this important subject.
Integrating computerized simulations learning into secondary schools will solve
problems of poor performance. Huppert, Yaakobi, and Lazarovvitz (2011) studied the
effectiveness of using computer simulations in science education and their findings about
computer simulations are: "Computer simulations help to improve science process skills in the
following ways: (a) expand the basis of inference through accession of larger data bases, (b)
activate learning, furnish situations and techniques that are too dangerous, too expensive,
unavailable, require too much or too little time to measure manually, too noisy or usually
frustrating due to complicate techniques. For E-education to be effective, Aduwu-Ogiegbean and
Iyamu (2005) observed that there are lack of relevant software that are appropriate and suitable to
Nigerian schools and probably poor funding as among factors that hinder the adoption of ICT in
secondary schools. Maredia (2007) opined that focusing on imparting skills and abilities that are
transferable to a wide range of occupations will influence the desired characteristics expected of
the curriculum. Abimbade (2005) said that infrastructural access to connectivity and lack of
adequate funding are barriers to the use of ICT by teachers and education practitioners. Queen
(2012) observed that the use of ICT in education results in increased effectiveness of educational
process and the use of ICT in training results in increased productivity through enhanced human
capacity. This will enhance the acquisition of the basic knowledge and skills for economic and
educational development. According to Runi and Bitiyak (2004), the productive capacity of a
nation depends on the quality and competence of its teachers. Langford (2007) observed that for
effective teaching to be promoted the teacher has a major role to play hence, an attempt by this

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study is to investigate the availability and use of ICT resources for biology curriculum delivery in
Akwa Ibom State Secondary Schools.
Statement of the Problem
Considering the consistent poor performances of biology students both in internal and
external examinations, there has been a great concern among parents, the public, biology
educators, and other stakeholder. Consequently, biology educators have been looking for ways of
reducing this problem of poor academic performance and dwindling interest of students in the
subject. Among such ways is the introduction of different instructional resources in the teaching of
the subject with focus on various biology concepts and it has not attracted much interest. With
these deterioration in students’ learning outcome in biology resulting in high failure rate, it is
therefore pertinent at this time when high premium is placed on science and technology as the
bedrock of national development and advancement to investigate the availability, accessibility and
the level of teachers’ competence in the use of Computer simulation as a resource in Akwa Ibom
State public secondary schools as a new technology in biology curriculum delivery.
Objectives of the Study
The objective of this study was to investigate the integration of ICT based instruction in
teaching and learning of biology in Akwa Ibom State secondary schools. Specifically, the
objectives were:
1. To investigate the availability of computer resources in Akwa Ibom State Secondary
Schools for biology curriculum delivery.
2. To investigate teachers’ access to computer resources for biology curriculum delivery in
Akwa Ibom State Secondary Schools.
3. To investigate teachers’ competence in computer operational skills for biology curriculum
delivery in Akwa Ibom State Secondary Schools.
Research Questions
The study was guided by the following research questions:
1. What is the level of availability of computer resources for biology curriculum delivery in
Akwa Ibom State Secondary Schools?
2. What is the level of teachers’ accessibility to computer resources for biology curriculum
delivery in Akwa Ibom State Secondary Schools?

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3. To what extent are the levels of teachers’ competences in computer operational skills for
biology curriculum delivery in Akwa Ibom State Secondary Schools?
Research Design
The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The choice of this design was
based on the fact that a sample of the population was used for investigation to generalize across
the entire population.
Area of Study
The study was conducted in Uyo Local Government Area. Uyo is the headquarters of Uyo
Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State. The population of Uyo is made up of mainly civil
servants. It has one (1) Federal University – the University of Uyo, Uyo Polytechnic, and twenty
(20) secondary schools, out of which thirteen (13) are Government owned. The researchers
decided to choose Uyo Local Government Area for the study because of educational problems of
the area.
Population
The population of the study comprises all the biology teachers in the thirteen (13) public
Secondary Schools in Uyo Local Education Committee of Akwa Ibom State. The population was
seventy two (72) biology teachers. The study covered ten (10) out of the thirteen (13) public
secondary schools in Uyo Municipality. The public co-educational schools were used to ascertain
the level of implementation of Akwa Ibom State policy for information technology.
Sample and Sampling Technique
A sample of fifty (50) biology teachers was selected for this study. These fifty (50)
teachers were randomly selected from the ten (10) public co-educational secondary schools that
were randomly sampled from the thirteen (13) public secondary schools. Simple random sampling
technique was adopted for the study.
Instrument for Data Collection
A researcher- made questionnaire of thirty (30) items on availability, accessibility and the
level of teaching competence in the use of ICT resources was constructed in three (3) sections
highlighting the three (3) research questions which was used for data collection. Section one (1)

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consisted of ten (10) questionnaire items which investigated the availability of Computer
resources in Akwa Ibom State Secondary School. Section two (2) consisted of ten (10)
questionnaire items which ascertained the level of accessibility of biology teachers to Computer
resources while section three (3) consisted of ten (10) questionnaire items which ascertained the
level of possession of Computer operational skills by biology teachers.
Validation of the Instrument
The questionnaire items were subjected to validation by two (2) lecturers in measurement
and evaluation and a computer scientist from computer science department, all from the
University of Uyo. All comments and corrections were incorporated into the final form of the
instrument.
Reliability of the Instrument
Split half method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument which was
established at 0.85. On the basis of the high index, the instrument was considered reliable and
suitable for conducting the research.
Method of Data Analysis
Frequency counts and percentage responses were used in analyzing the data on the research
questions.
Research Procedure
Permission was sought from the Principals of the ten (10) Secondary Schools under study as
well as the biology teachers. The copies of the questionnaire were administered to biology
teachers in each school by the researcher with the help of research assistances who were one of the
biology teachers in each school. The questionnaire consisted three (3) clusters highlighting the
three research questions for availability of Computer resources in Akwa Ibom State Secondary
Schools, the level of accessibility of teachers to Computer resources and the level of possession of
Computer Operational skills by teachers. The teachers in each school were required to fill and
return the questionnaire on the day of each visit. But only fifty (50) copies of questionnaire out of
sixty one (61) given out were retrieved. The items of questionnaire collected were then prepared
for analysis.

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Results of Data Analysis:
The scores derived from the questionnaire were analyzed and are presented as follows:
Research Question One: What is the level of availability of computer resources in Akwa Ibom
State Secondary Schools?
On the available of Computer resources in Secondary Schools, the responses of the teachers
are presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Frequency and Percentage Responses on Availability of Computer Resources in
Secondary Schools in Uyo Municipality
S/N Item statement Yes No
Freq
.
%Freq. %
1Is computer available in your school? 39 78 11 22
2Do you have personal laptops/ computers? 8 16 42 84
3Do you have adequate computer skilled personnel
in your school?
7 14 43 86
4Do you have functional micro projectors? 0 0 50 100
5Is Over head projector available in your school? 0 0 50 100
6Do you have Computer Discs? 3 6 47 94
7Are Computer soft ware programmes available
for teaching subject?
5 10 45 90
8Is your school power regular? 0 0 50 100
9Does Internet facilities available in your school? 0 0 50 100
10 Do you have Digital Video disc? 0 0 50 100
The data in Table 1 revealed that over 70% of the respondents indicated they have computer
in their schools for use in biology curriculum delivery, 16% indicated that they have personal
laptops/computers, 14% indicated that they have computer skilled personnel in their schools.
Further more, 100% of the respondents indicated that they do not have micro projectors, over head
projectors, regular power supply, and digital video disc and that their schools were not connected
to internet. Only 6% indicated that they have computer discs and 10% said that they have
computer software programmes.
Research Question Two

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What is the level of accessibility of Computer Resources for curriculum delivery by
teachers in Akwa Ibom State secondary schools?
On the accessibility of Computer resources by teachers for curriculum delivery in Secondary
Schools, the responses are presented in Table 2.
Table 2: Accessibility of Teachers to Computer resources for teaching in Uyo Municipality
S/N Item Statement Yes No
Freq. % Freq. %
1Schools that computers are installed and are ready for
use in the computer room/laboratory.
5 10 45 90
2Schools that computers are not yet installed but
carefully locked up in a room to avoid being damaged
or stolen.
45 90 5 10
3Schools with adequate number of computers for the
students population (that is, low student ratio to a
computer)
0 0 50 100
4Schools that have computer soft-ware programmes. 2 4 48 96
5Schools that computers are connected to internet. 0 0 50 100
6Schools that have un-interrupted power supply. 0 0 50 100
7Schools that have functional standby electricity
generating set/ power supply.
0 0 50 100
8Schools that have staff in form of computer
maintenance/servicing staff.
10 20 40 80
9Schools that computers are used mainly for
administrative purposes.
20 40 30 60
10 Schools that computers are used by Science teachers for
teaching and learning of Science subjects.
0 0 50 100
The data in Table 2 showed that only 10% of the respondents indicated that the computers
supplied to schools have been installed for use for biology curriculum delivery. Over 87% of the
respondents agreed that school computers are locked up in rooms and they do not have access to
them. Also 0% indicated that the student to a computer ratio is low, that schools usually have
interrupted power supply, no functional generating set, and that school computers are not used by
biology teachers for teaching and learning of biology subjects. 4% also indicated that they have
computer software programmes and 20% agreed that they have computer operators or computer
maintenance/ servicing staff. The table further revealed that 40% of the respondents indicated that
the schools computers are mainly for administrative purposes.

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Research Question Three
What is the level of teachers’ competence in Computer operational skills in Akwa Ibom State
Secondary Schools? The responses are presented in Table 3.
Table 3: Teachers’ Level of Competence in Computer Resources Operational Skills in Uyo
Municipality.
S/n Item statement Yes No
Freq. % Freq. %
1 Teachers with technical skills in using computers and
accessories.
10 20 40 80
2 Teachers that can use common logical operations in searching
the internet.
8 16 42 84
3 Teachers that can select Microsoft word from the menu and sub-
menu.
18 36 32 64
4 Teachers that can create new documents. 15 30 35 70
5 Teachers that can type and save documents. 18 36 32 64
6 Teachers that can do Internet browsing. 20 40 30 60
7 Teachers that can draw charts, graphs using computer. 8 16 42 84
8 Teachers that can copy a text from one page to another page. 10 20 40 80
9 Teachers that use power point software. 5 10 45 90
10 Teachers that can use Computer simulation technique to teach
students.
5 10 45 90
Table 3 revealed teachers’ low level operational skills in computer resources. Only 20% of
teachers agreed that they have technical skills in using computers and accessories, 16% have
common logical operations in searching the internet, 36% can select Microsoft word, 30% can
create new documents, and 36% can do typing and saving of documents. They further revealed
that 40% of the respondents can browse internet, 16% can draw charts and graphs with computer,
20% can copy text from one page to another, 10% can use power point and only 10% of biology
teachers can use computer simulation technique to teach students.
Discussion of Results
The findings of the study from Table 1 showed that ICT resources for biology instruction
are lacking as some of the schools do not have computers and accessories to facilitate their use.
This agreed with Aduwu- Ogiegbean and Iyamu (2005) that there are lacks of relevant software

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that are appropriate and suitable to Nigerian schools. Again, poor funding as among other factors
also hinder the adoption of ICT in secondary schools. Maredia (2007) corroborates that focusing
on imparting skills and abilities that are transferable to a wide range of occupations will influence
the desired characteristics expected of the curriculum.
Findings from Table 2 showed that secondary school teachers do not have access to
Computer resources. These corroborated with the findings of Abimbade (2005) that infrastructural
access to connectivity and lack of adequate funding, are considerable barriers to the use of ICT by
teachers and education practitioners. Queen (2012) observed that the use of technology in
education results in increased effectiveness of educational process and use of technology in
training results in increased productivity through enhanced human capacity. This will enhance the
acquisition of the basic knowledge and skills for economic and educational development.
Table 3 revealed that teachers lack Computer operational skills. This corroborated with the
findings of Runi and Bitiyak (2004) that the productive capacity of a nation depends on the quality
and competence of its teachers. Langford (2007) observed that for effective teaching to be
promoted, the teacher has a major role to play. Some attributes must be spelt out which include
teacher’s quality, teachers’ confidence in his ability to teach, teachers interest in expanding his
knowledge and that of his students in a manner that each student is inspired to attain the highest
degree of skills for which he is capable to attain. Seminars for teachers on Computer operational
skills will empower the teachers to guide the learners to attain maximum self realization.
Summary of Findings
The summaries of findings from this study are as follows:
1. Most schools have computers; though they are not sufficient in number to cope with the
large students’ population. These computers are not installed hence are not accessible to
biology teachers and students.
2. Almost all the schools do not have computer soft-ware programmes and most biology
teachers are unaware of such programmes and how to use them for biology curriculum
delivery.
3. Most biology teachers are not computer literate and do not have the knowledge and skills
for using ICT gadgets.
4. None of the schools is connected to the internet and most biology teachers do not know
how to access the internet facilities for use in biology curriculum delivery.

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5. All the schools have problem of interrupted electricity supply and do not have functional
standby electricity generating set to ensure steady power supply for effective use of the
computer resources at all times.
Conclusion:
Conclusion from the findings is that Secondary Schools in Uyo Local Government Area of
Akwa Ibom State need adequate ICT resources in the schools for biology curriculum delivery. The
ICT resources should be made readily accessible by teachers for teaching. Teachers’ computer
operational skills and competencies should be improved through seminars, workshops and
conferences.
Recommendations:
The following recommendations are made based on the results of the findings:
1. The State Government as well as other stake holders in secondary education should invest in
the procurement and installation of modern ICT resources in secondary schools for teaching of
biology concepts.
2. Improvement of quality of biology teachers by exposing them to pre-service, in-service
teachers training in form of seminars on Computer simulation operational skills and re-
structuring teacher education programmes to incorporate required skills in computer operation.
3. Schools should have supplementary power supply to supplement that of Port Harcourt
Distribution Company Limited (PDCL) to enable the teachers and students have uninterrupted
training schedule and access to internet.
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