ASSESSMENT OF MOBILE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES APPLICATION FOR BUSINESS EDUCATION INSTRUCTION IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed mobile learning technologies application for business education instruction in colleges of education in Delta State, Nigeria using descriptive survey research design. Three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The population for the study was 312, made up of 79 business education lecturers and 233 NCE III students of business education from the two colleges of education from Delta North. Purposive sampling and simple random sampling techniques were used. The entire 79 lecturers were used from the two colleges while 61 students were sampled from FCE (T) Asaba and 42 students from College of Education Agbor, making a total of 182. The instrument for data collection was a 50-item structured questionnaire. The instrument was face-validated by three experts using Cronbach Alpha. The reliability yielded a coefficient of 0.84. The data collected were analysed using frequency, mean and t-test statistics. The findings of the study showed that the extent of utilization of m-learning technologies is relatively low. In addition, the study identified 15 instructional benefits of the use of m-learning technologies and 20 challenges undermining effective utilization of m-learning technologies for teaching and learning business education subjects in colleges of education in Delta North. The result of hypotheses showed no significant differences in the mean ratings of the responses of business education lecturers and students on 40 out of the 50 items, whereas, there were significant differences on the remaining 10 items. The study among others recommended capacity building training for lecturers on m-learning skills for effective operation of m-learning devices for teaching, learning and research purposes.

Keywords: Mobile learning, Business education, Colleges of education, Benefits, Challenges.