Bulgarian Journal of Science and Education Policy (Dec 2015)
Integrating Internet into Engineering Education: A Case Study of Students' Usage and Attitudes in Faculty of Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University
Abstract
The attitude of students towards the integration of the internet as a study tool and communication channel in teaching and learning in engineering has been investigated. A study was carried out in the Faculty of Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria, aimed at investigating the effect of certain variables such as gender, course of study, computer experience, and the percentage of internet usage on teaching and learning processes. A well-structured questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected five hundred (500) male and female students across the seven (7) departments of the faculty and about 85% were filled and returned. The study also examines the university management's perspectives and strategies to incorporate internet usage in teaching and learning processes especially in engineering. Amazingly, responses received showed that experience in the use of the computer in surfing the internet for problem based activities mainly affects the level of internet usage across the faculty. This factor makes some students to misplace their priority in internet usage emphasizing on e-mail correspondence and social networking rather than sourcing for information and solving problems as it is done by a few students. Furthermore, findings support that internet cannot entirely substitute for traditional teaching and learning processes like text reading but can serve as a reasonable alternative when the latter is unavailable
