GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT

The study sought to determine the influence of age and gender on ICT skills acquisition among secondary school teachers in Uyo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. A survey research design was adopted for the study. This study was carried out in some selected secondary schools within the Uyo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. The population of the study consisted of all the newly recruited teachers in all public secondary schools selected for this study within Uyo Local Government Area. A simple random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and ninety-five (195) teachers selected across the entire Local Government Area. This gave a total of 195 respondents used for the study. The instrument used in this study for data collection was a questionnaire titled "Demographic Variable and ICT Skills Acquisition among Teachers Questionnaire (DVICTSATQ)". Face and content validation of the instrument was carried out by an expert from University of Uyo in testing, measurement, and evaluation to ensure that the instrument has the accuracy, appropriateness, and completeness for the study under consideration. The reliability of the instrument was obtained by using test-retest method. The survey data was organised and analyzed, and the research questions were answered using the mean (x), while the independent Chi-square (x2) was used to test the null hypotheses. The test for significance was done at 0.05 alpha levels. Based on the above findings, it was concluded that age and gender had significant influence on ICT skills acquisition by teachers in secondary schools in Uyo Local Government Area. This means teachers’ age and gender reveal a positive impact on the issue of ICT skills acquisition and utilisation among teachers in secondary schools. One of the recommendations made was that the government, through the Ministry of Education, should take into consideration certain variables about teachers such as age and gender at the point of recruitment because of the importance of ICT skills to education in modern society.

KEYWORDS: Age, Gender, ICT skills acquisition, Secondary school teachers, and Uyo Local Government Area