Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of modern technology addiction on effective learning in students in the Buea Municipality. Specifically, the study sought to determine the influence of mobile phone addiction, television addiction and computer and internet addiction on effective learning among students in the Buea Municipality.

The study employed a survey research design. Data was collected purposively, with the use of a structured questionnaire, from a sample population of 150 students randomly sampled from the Department of Educational Psychology of the Faculty of Education, University of Buea.

Data were descriptively analysed from the questionnaire by calculating frequencies and percentages. Inferential statistics were also employed, using the Spearman-Rho Correlation coefficient. Findings revealed that: mobile phone addiction had a negative significant effect on effective learning of students (R= -0.622, P=0.001); TV addiction has a negative significant effective learning of students (R= -0.548, P=0.003); and computer and internet addiction has positive significant effects on effective learning of students (R=0.684, P=0.002).

Overall, it was concluded that modern technology addiction has an impact on the effective learning of students in the Buea Municipality. The study recommended that educational authorities should try to educate students on the type of things to do on the internet to enhance their knowledge.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Historically, Education began informally when children learned the trades of their parents. The duties of parents were shifted when society become more work demanding. Parents were recognized as role models and all-knowing and the children under their care were considered blank slates to be written on. The invention of alphabets, numerals and the system of inscribing in clays in 3100 BC assisted the teaching/learning process as information could be stored and revisited in the future.

The further invention of paper in 105 AD enabled features and learners to document knowledge. Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1436 made a drastic positive change in education; textbooks, newspapers and other vital documented tools in education were produced. After the 15th century, graphs, charts, boards, chalk, quill pens, pencils (1795), erasers (1770) and rulers (1675) became introduced in education and the formal training of teachers became a norm.

In the 1920s, school museums and motion pictures were used in American schools. In 1930-the 1940s, photography, displays, radio, and programmed instruction were introduced in the US school. Televisions were also introduced in the 1950s – 1960s in US schools. By the 1970s, videotape, recorders were introduced alongside televisions and the application of pre-recorded programs became a major educational activity. All of these discoveries showed a gradual improvement in the science world. These also marked the gradual introduction of technology in the field of education.

Another notable argument to this effect is by Kelles-Viitanen (2003) who refers to developing countries in general, commenting that ICT plays a major role in all aspects of national life: in politics, economic life, as well as in social and cultural development. She further argued that ICT is rapidly transforming the way people do business, access information and services communicate with each other and even entertain themselves. The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Ministerial Declaration (2000) provided special attention to the application of ICT for development, for which urgent and concerted actions at the national, regional and international levels have been suggested. A Microsoft Corporation (2007) report on its ICT initiatives in Africa acknowledged that technology alone does not drive development but enables it. The report, while noting that 300 million Africans live on less than $1 per day. The country has to overcome this challenge to provide quality education for all. Consequently, ICTs have been introduced in the curriculum of schools in Buea. It is especially adaptable for teaching in those schools that are remote or isolated from the main urban centres that may have other forms of ICTs more readily available. Radio possesses a big advantage over other learning experiences in the form of music, language, history, literature, drama and many social studies areas (Tambo, 2003).

Tambo, (2003) observed that television is one of the most impressive technological wonders developed in the 20th century. Although it has been used in the more technologically advanced countries for more than half a century, it is only recently that the medium has available to a sustainable number of people in African countries. In some of these countries, the medium, owing to a lack of infrastructure such as electricity, is still not available to most people living in rural areas unlike the radio which is familiar to many people, the use of television at this time tends to be concentrated in the urban areas.

Conceptually, Educational institutions may utilize ICT to enrich students with skills and knowledge for the 21st century (Andoh, 2012), such that it can add to worldwide access to education, educational equality, broadcasting of quality teaching-learning programs, educators’ professional growth and to help in obtaining more effective educational management. Hence, accessibility, inclusion and standard being the key issues of education, can be comfortably addressed through ICT. ICT improves the standard of education by encouraging learning through ongoing discussion, delayed time discussion, directed instruction, self-learning, critical thinking, data seeking and analysis (Yuen, Law & Wong, 2003).

Utilization of ICT can enhance outcomes, instruction, and administration and create important abilities in the underprivileged groups (Sharma, 2003), and at the same time influence educational instruction and research process (Yusuf, 2005). In the classroom teaching and learning process, the use of ICT is imperative as it gives chance to the instructors and learners to operate, store, control and retrieve data other than to promote self-regulated and active learning (Ali, Haolader & Muhammad, 2013).

ICT-based learning includes an expanded propensity towards collaborative learning among learners and instructors, not just in a specific classroom. This kind of collaboration is in contrast to the conventional learning environment, for example, distance learning inspires educators and learners to engage in learning even after school time (Ali, Haolader & Muhammad, 2013). The system helps instructors to plan and prepare lessons and design materials such as course content (Ali, Haolader & Muhammad, 2013). The rapid development of this system has prompted a revolution in learning as new technological advancement in education has involved the re-examination of new techniques and instruments in the instructional process.

Computers and the Internet have been touted as capable means to empower users for educational changes and improvement, by utilizing various information and resources and reviewing information from different points of view; hence, cultivating the authenticity and actuality of learning situations (Tinio, 2003). ICT helps to make complicated things simple to comprehend through simulations that once more add to real learning situations. Hence, ICT may act as a facilitator of dynamic learning and higher-order thinking (Alexander, 1999). To enhance the academic performance of students, there is a need to turn from conventional teaching methods to modern teaching methods.

Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) is space and time-independent making it convenient for students to go through the program either at home or on a school computer. This encourages interactivity, which individualizes content for each learner based on their needs and it provides formative feedback to multiple-choice questions. CAI enhances the learning rate where the learners can learn more materials given the same amount of time as compared to conventionally taught learners.

Moreover, students receiving instructions through ICT retain learning better (Cotton, 2001). The issue of low achievement among learners has been tormenting the instructive framework right from the elementary classes to 76 Vol. 4 No. 1 (June 2017) Effects of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) university level. This issue wastes human potential and facilities for education. The findings of the study will confirm the effectiveness of ICTs in teaching chemistry and also predict that ICT-based instruction is better than the conventional teaching approach. In addition to enhanced achievement scores, the findings of the study will boost the interest and retention of the students.

Theoretically, the study made use of Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT), and Katz’s Gratification theory. According to the SLT three elements including individual learning, peers, and situations, potentially affect individuals’ performance (Bandura 1997), Ainin et al (2015) state that social learning theory explains how environmental and cognitive components collaborate to affect and individual learning and behaviour pattern ‘’Social learning theory views learning as a social process that individuals will self-initiate, regulate learning and actively construct knowledge by acquiring, generating and structuring information. (Yu et al, 2010)

About the SLT as stated by Bandura (1997), the use of ICT technology by students or individuals with friends on various social media networks platforms affects their academic performance. This is also supported by Ainin et al (2015) who emphasized that individuals’ cognition and behaviour are influenced through observation and interaction with peers and the situation, for example, learning environment norms, culture and policies.

Katz’s Gratification theory which answered the second part of the study holds that people are responsible for choosing a particular media to meet their needs.  That media in turn complete with other information sources for viewers’ gratification (Katz et all, 1974). Therefore, the academic performance of students is a result of competition between social media network participation and academic work. This implies that the amount of time invested in participating in social media could affect the time allocated for studies by students and could affect their learning outcomes.

Contextually, Cameroon is among the Sub-Saharan African countries that are making enormous progress in the use of ICTs in various development sectors, including education. In Cameroon, between 1998 and 1999, efforts were made in a private mission schools like College François Xavier Vogt in Yaounde to use ICTs in education whereas it was only in 2001 that ICTs were introduced in public schools in Cameroon. Before the ministries of education could provide the ICT curricula, several private primary and general secondary and technical schools in major cities had acquired computers and had begun to provide courses on ICTs (Karsenti et al. 2012).

In February 2001, the President of the Republic of Cameroon called for the orientation of education toward the knowledge economy in his address to the Cameroon youth (Mbangwana, 2008). He promised the introduction of computing in schools and the endowment of computer rooms to schools.

This led to the official introduction of ICT in general and technical secondary schools. Government involvement in the area of ICTs seriously began with the development of the policy document and the general strategy for the integration of ICTs in all sectors by the National Agency of ICTs (ANTIC) and the setting up of Multimedia Resource Centers in some primary and secondary schools (Government Bilingual High school Yaounde, Lycée Général Leclerc, Yaounde and Government Bilingual High School, Joss, Douala), and primary schools like École des “Champions” of the Chantal Biya Foundation.

By 2003, official ICT programmes for secondary schools were conceived and ICT syllabuses and National Sequential Schemes of work published in 2008 were made available to Nursery, Primary and Teacher Training Colleges. Textbooks have also been written and selected by the National Book Commission to facilitate their teaching of it.

In 2004, key strategies for using ICTs in education were highlighted in the first official draft of the Cameroon National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) policy and plan prepared by the government with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). In this document, the government recognised ICTs as a national priority along with education, health, forestry and governance (Josue, 2007). The NICI had as resolve the following;

i.Modernising the educational system through the introduction of ICTs in schools.

ii.Introducing ICT application modules into national Universities.

iii.Training teachers in the use of it.

iv.Multiplying pedagogic resource centres for teachers and students.

v.Preparing a sectorial ICT policy for the educational sector.

vi.Preparing support for the production of ICT teaching materials (Josue, 2007).

Since the introduction of ICTs in schools in Cameroon, the government is succeeding in the implementation of its ICT objectives. In 2007, the field of Computer Science and Educational Technologies was established at the Higher Teacher Training College (HTTC) Yaounde (Centre Region) to train general secondary school ICT and Computer Science, teachers.

The following year, a similar field was established at the Higher Teacher Training College, Maroua (Far North Region). In 2009, an information management system was set up at the Higher Teacher Training College, Bamenda (North West Region) to train technical secondary school teachers.  Apart from government initiatives, non-governmental organizations like the Association for Development, Communication and Environment (ADCOME) and Agence Nationale des Technologies de l’information et de la communication (ANTIC) have also contributed at regional levels to bridge the digital divide in secondary schools in the South West Region of the country through their project (Computer and Internet Access Centres) CIAC project. ADCOME’s initial objective was to bring the internet closer to people at a low cost (Nganji, 2010).

ICTs increase the quality of education. One of the most vital contributions of ICTs in the field of education is easy to access to Learning (Sharma, et. al., 2009). According to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014, ICTs are the first tool that will help both, teachers and pupils. The role of ICTs can be evaluated in many directions.

According to Becta 2003, five factors influence the likelihood that good ICT learning opportunities will develop in schools: ICT resourcing, ICT leadership, ICT teaching, school leadership and general teaching. Becta (2003) also indicates that the success of the integration of new technology and information into education varies from curriculum to curriculum, place to place, and class to class, depending on how it is applied in depended (Bingimla, 2009).

Statement of the Problem

Nowadays, university students are highly depend on the modern ICTs tools such as mobile phones, computer and internet, TV to search for information, social  networking, entertainment, online shopping, and online gaming, among others. Universities around the world are using the ICTs to enhance teaching and learning inside or outside the classroom. Using these ICTs wisely for the right purpose is beneficial to the students; such as researching tool, seeking knowledge, enhancing their soft skills, exchanging experience and knowledge with international students and other parties.

While the use of these ICTs has many advantages and proves to increase efficiency, it could also be harmful to the students if they become addicted to it. It may cause emotional instability, poor study habits, low concentrations in classrooms and low academic performance (Yeap et al., 2016). Therefore, the objectives of this study are threefold: to examine the effect of modern technologies addiction on student effective learning among students in the University of Buea.

Objectives of the Study

Main Objective

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of modern technology addiction on effective learning in students in the Buea Municipality

Specific Objectives

1. To determine the influence of mobile phone addiction on effective learning among students in the Buea Municipality
2. To investigate the influence of television addiction on effective learning among students in the Buea Municipality
3. To find out the influence of computer and internet addiction on effective learning among students in the Buea Municipality

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