A Survey of ICT Competencies among Students in Teacher Preparation Programmes at the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria

Today's fast-paced world is becoming increasingly characterized by technology driven communication, which has transformed the world into a large global connected community with ever-increasing outreach of information and communication technology (ICT). Technology plays an increasingly important role in people's lives, and it is envisaged that technological literacy will soon become a functional requirement for people's work, social, and even personal lives. For both social and economic reasons students will need computer and communication technology skills if they are to live successfully in a knowledge-based society. The purpose of this study is to examine the ICT usage habits and the self-assessed ICT competencies possessed by undergraduate students in teacher preparation programmes in the University of Benin. A second important issue that was addressed was whether there were significant differences in the perceived ICT competency among students according to demographic and study related factors. Thus, the paper's central research objectives are: (1) To examine the ICT usage habits of students in teacher preparation programmes; (2) To examine the self-assessed ICT skills' competencies possessed by students in teacher preparation programmes; and (3) To determine whether there were significant differences in perceived ICT competencies among students in teacher preparation programmes according to demographic and study related factors (gender, and type of computer training). A descriptive survey was adopted and the target population was all students in levels 200, 300, and 400 of the faculty of education, University of Benin. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire adapted from Bassey, Akuegwu, Udida, Ntukidem, and Ekabua (2007). The results show that: (1) Students' ICT usage was low, particularly the use of internet and email; (2) The respondents perceived themselves to be good in word processing and file navigation, moderate in Internet browsing and emailing. Only two percent (2%) of the respondents perceived themselves to be competent in PowerPoint with about seventy percent (70%) having no capability at all; (3) There was no significant difference in the perceived competency among students according to gender and academic year/level. However, there was significant difference in the perceived competency among students according to the type of computer training, with those with formal computer training perceiving themselves to be most compet