PERCEPTIONS OF READINESS OF ONLINE LEARNING AMONG HEADS AND LECTURERS OF MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENTS IN KEBBI STATE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING

Abstract

Nigeria is said to have one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children. The adoption of technological innovations is perceived as a possible solution to an accelerated education programme. Higher education in Nigeria has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic’s extensive spread and the swift digital transition. Countries worldwide have resorted to online teaching and learning in an effort to guarantee continuous educational delivery and lessen the effect of the COVID-19 epidemic on education. This clearly shows the potential of online learning towards ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. But because of this sudden change, this study uses a descriptive survey approach to investigate how staff and students of mathematics view and prepare for online learning. A sample size of 101 mathematics lecturers and 7 heads of department (HODs) from all of Kebbi State’s public higher education institutions participated in the study. For data collection, two sets of self-developed 4-point Likert scale questionnaires were used. The questionnaires were validated by experts, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient showed a reliability coefficient of 0.80. To ascertain the degree of preparedness for online learning of mathematics HODs and lecturers, the data collected in this study were analysed using percentages, descriptive statistics of mean, and standard deviation. According to the study's overall findings, mathematics lecturers believe they have the technical skills necessary to contextualise their pedagogical knowledge to online teaching and learning, while HODs are highly prepared for this type of instruction. In order to safeguard the quality of online teaching and learning implementation, it was recommended that strategic planning be necessary to ensure that the lecturers’ and HODs’ weak points in terms of their online readiness for installing, maintaining, and enhancing ICT infrastructures are unquestionably addressed.