Abstract

This study sought to investigate the effect of the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs) on students’ academic performance in some higher institutions of learning in the Buea Municipality. To achieve this objective, the specific objectives used were: to find out the familiarity of OERs in higher institutions in the Buea Municipality, to find out the extent to which students use these OERs in studying and their effects on their academic performance, to identify the challenges that students face in using OERs and the extent to which these affects their academic performance, to seek solutions to the problems students encounter in the use of OERs.

The sequential explanatory research design was used in this study. An interview guide was used to collect data from students while thirty closed- ended questionnaire items were used for the sample population, one hundred and fifty final year students in some higher institutions were used as sample size for the study. Descriptive analysis was used to analyse demographic information collected and represented in frequency tables, while linear regression was used as the inferential statistics to test the hypotheses of the study, at P<0.05 level of significance.

The findings of this study indicated that there is a strong positive relationship between familiarities of OERs and students’ academic performance (P= 0.05), with a correlation coefficient value of (R=0.076) implying that students will likely boost their academic performance with familiarity of OERs.

The findings equally affirmed that there is a strong relationship between student use of OERs and academic performance (P=0.05) with a correlation coefficient value of (R=0.083) meaning students who make good use of OERs influence their academic performance.

Again, the finding revealed that there is a strong relationship between challenges faced in using OERs by students and academic performance (P=0.05), with a correlation value of (R=0.841) which implies that students’ challenges will increase if they are not using OERs. Similarly, the proposed solutions were found to have a positive relationship on student academic performance (P=0.05) with a correlation coefficient of (P=0.263) when solution of students’ problems are well handled.

Based on the findings, the following recommendations are indispensable: seminars should be organized by the ministry of higher education to help students know the different types of OERs and ensure that they are familiar with and use the best one. Also, open educational resources should be included in the curriculum of Higher Educational Institutions as to arm of those aspiring professionals on how to handle student difficulties.

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