ABSTRACT
The study examined the influence of information
communication technology (ICT) on moral behaviours of adolescents in secondary
schools in Oshodi Local Government Area of Lagos State. In this study also,
relevant and extensive literature review was carried out under some
sub-headings. Three null hypotheses were formulated and tested in this study,
using the independent t-test statistical tool at 0.05 level of significance was
used to analyse the data collected. The descriptive research survey design was
used in the assessment of the respondents’ opinions using the questionnaire
titled “Influence of Information Communication Technology (ICT) on Moral
Behaviour of Adolescence”, stratified random sampling technique was used to
select the sample. Also, a total of
200(two hundred) respondents were selected and used as the representatives of
the entire population of the study. At the end of the data analysis, the
following results were obtained: There is a significant influence of ICT on
students’ moral behaviour in the school. There is a significant gender
difference in delinquent behaviour of students due to use of ICT in school.
There is a significant relationship between the use of ICT and adolescents’
social adjustment in school. Among the recommendations made the use of ICT
should be in the curriculum of the school at both the lower and upper levels of
Nigerian school system. If this is done
it will help enhance teaching and learning in the school. Students should
maximize the benefit of ICT by ensuring that they do not allow the use of ICT
either through the use of phones, the newspapers, the magazines or the internet
to sway their moral rectitude in the school or at home. It is obvious that the use of ICT via the
internet through the viewing of pornographic films, the weird videos and other
electronic media influence students behaviour generally. In the foregoing,
students should not allow themselves to be involved in immoral acts as a result
of the application of ICT.
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgements iv
Abstract v
Table of Contents vi
CHAPTER
ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1
Background
to the Study 1
1.2
Statement
of the Problems 6
1.3
Purpose
of the Study 8
1.4
Research
Questions 8
1.5
Research
Hypotheses 9
1.6
Significance
of the Study 9
1.7
Scope
of the Study 11
1.8
Definition
of Terms 11
CHAPTER
TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 13
2.1
Concept
and Nature of Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) 13
2.2
The
Role of ICT in the Education of the Youth 18
2.3
Concept
and Nature of Morality 22
2.4
Religion
and Morality 24
2.5
Information
and Communications Technology and Moral
Behaviour of the Adolescents 26
2.6
Students’
Gender and Academic Performance 29
2.7
ICT
and Academic Performance 36
2.8
Positive
and Negative Functions of Information
Communication Technology 39
2.9
Summary
of Review 43
CHAPTER
THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 45
3.1
Research
Design 45
3.2
Population
of the Study 45
3.3
Sample
and Sampling Technique 46
3.4
The
Instrument 47
3.5
Procedure
for Data Collection 47
3.6
Procedure
for Data Analysis 48
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF
RESULTS 49
4.0 Introduction 49
4.1 Testing
of Hypotheses 49
4.2 Summary
of Findings 53
CHAPTER
FIVE: DISCUSSION, SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS
AND RECOMMENDATIONS 54
5.0 Introduction 54
5.1 Discussion
of Results 54
5.2 Summary
of the Study 57
5.3 Conclusions 58
5.4 Recommendations 58
5.5 Suggestions
for Further Studies 60
References 61
Appendix 69
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background
to the Study
Nigeria as a
country, has since embraced the use of information communication technology
(ICT) in storage, process and retrieval of important information. Nigeria has
also been noted as a country that is aspiring to be recorded in the comity of
nations, as one which has adapted to the e-world, whereby ICT is the in-thing.
For instance, in Nigeria,
information communication technology is applied in the educational, political,
economic and religious circles. It has so much infiltrated Nigeria that, these
days anyone who is not computer literate is seen as not educated at all
(Nwafor, 2005). The above opinion summarises the essence and effect of ICT on
the overall activities of Nigerians and Nigeria.
It is worthy to note
that, since the advent of information communication technology (ICT), moral
decadence has been on the increase (Anyanwu, 2000). This is because most crimes
in the society these days, have been connected with the use or contact with the
gadgets that associate with information technology like the phone, the
internet, the television and so on.
The term
‘information’, encompasses a wide range and variety of things ranging from oral
and printed words, figures, statements, files and documents to such intangible
elements as sounds, signals, rays and waves. Whatever the form information
takes, the essence of information is that it conveys a message. UNESCO (1979)
defined information simply as “set of data recorded in a methodical manner”,
which according to the document includes any item of knowledge capable of
facilitating the operation of a system and any numerical or alpha-numerical
quantity processed by the machine. The aggregate of information constitutes the
data and results of a problem.
According to Ajaiyi
(2004), the term ‘technology’, refers to the application of scientific
knowledge. Information technology, can be defined as the acquisition,
processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictoral, textual and numerical
information by a macro-base combination of computing and telecommunication. Telecommunication
is a special form of communication in which information is conveyed over long
distance. Information technology also refers to more efficient way of storing,
accessing and updating information than process involving paper.
Behaviour connotes the
way in which an organism, a machine or any substance acts or works. In the case
of human beings, behaviour has two aspects, the private and the overt. The
private is known by the behaviour a person exhibits in his/her environment,
while the overt, though linked with the private, is observable by other persons
in the person’s world. Behaviour is a cooperative action between the internal
equipment of the person and the nature of the environment, which the person
undergoes. If the environmental stimulation is constituently strong enough, the
internal equipment of the organism reacts to it in a predictable pattern.
Repetitions thus lead to habits formation (Allports, 2005).
As Pitty (2000) puts
it, behaviour of a person is judged desirable or undesirable in a social
context. What is desirable in one social situation may be undesirable in
another. The desirable or undesirable is concerned with relationship between
antecedent conditions and consequent events. Antecedent conditions refer to
happenings in a person’s social environment while the consequent events refer
to the outcomes of these happenings which may be appreciated or unappreciated.
Environmental happenings take time to register their effects on the individual.
In other words, the effects of the environment are cumulative and lasting.
According to Uzor (2001), individual’s behaviour manifestation of today, may be
functionally related to events that take place in the life of that individual
prior to those manifestations.
Ekpo (2002) observed
that information received by students on the computer, television and telephone
can change or modify behaviour. The information can generate new responses or
change old ones depending on the degree of observation permitted the
socializing individual and on the type of imitation he/she can have of the
behaviours and attitudes exhibited by his models. Although the forces of
development are primarily within the individual. The environment plays a
secondary role in the process of natural enfoldment of that which nature has enfolded
within the individual in a natural environment free from corruption. If the
information is positive and conducive, individual will develop positively and
behave rationally, but if otherwise negative, the development may be
detrimental (Ajumel and Almonde, 2003).
According to Adams (2004), the interactionist position of individuals
with the type, quantity and quality of information received explains better the
concept of individual differences in a culture or a system or organisation
whose tendency is to mould the people is the same. The training that is given
to children in order to help them meet the demands of the society in which they
live is called socialization. Information technology can be used to assist
students in the following ways: getting along with others (respecting others’
rights); self-reliance or self-confidence; achieving educational success;
achieving material success; achieving professional success and adhering to
societal value system.
Morals are concerned
with standards of behaviour, which constitute the fundamental principles which
guide people to know what is right or what is wrong, and correspondingly, what
is good and what is bad. That is to say that morals guide people towards the
right direction and enable the society to appreciate and preserve some
fundamental virtues like love, honesty, self-control, modesty, chastity,
truthfulness, discipline and so on. At the same time, morals govern the welfare
of people and sharpen their attitudes like cheating in examinations or corrupt
practices in the society, selfishness, dishonesty, greed, theft, robbery,
fornication or adultery and so on (Adekoya, 2002).
Adekoya is of the
opinion that the use of ICT by adolescents in schools, has made some of them to
perform poorly in their examinations. According to him, what does one expect
from a student who does not read or study well due to much time given to watching
television programmes, watching or viewing pornographic films on the internet
and busy posting letters to friends on the facebook or u-tube etc. Not only
making them to achieve low or dismal academic performance, the use of ICT has
caused some adolescents to be recluses i.e. keeping to themselves in order to
have time to view bad films on the internet. This has affected their social
adjustment with their peers in the society or at home.
Uzor (2006) believes
that the use of ICT has caused male and female students to become promiscuous
due to the negative influence it has created in them. This is because,
adolescents practice what they see and hear either through the television or
the web site etc.
Due to the advent of
information communications technology, adolescents in schools these days, use
the telephones, the internets, and other forms of (ICT) to gather information
which help them to carry out their educational pursuits effectively.
Nevertheless, adolescents use of the ICT, in any case, has brought about many
ills in the society. For instance, many students tell a lot of lies using their
phones, while many of them corrupt their minds through the internet by opening
the pornographic sites and viewing the corruptive and weird pictures. Through
this medium, they become corrupt, promiscuous, dishonest and immoral (Bello, 2008). This study
attempts to find out the extent ICT affects the morality of individuals,
especially the students in our various secondary schools.
1.2
Statement
of the Problems
The essence of this
study is to examine whether the use of ICT by adolescents in school, has
affected their moral and ethical behaviours at home and in the school, and
whether the Nigeria school system and the society have faired well since the
advent of ICT or not.
There is no gainsaying
the fact that, since the advent of the telephones, internet, the facebook or
the u-tube, the society and the school have had their fair shares of the ills
associated with ICT. For instance, the advent of ICT has caused some of the
Nigerian youths in schools, to imbibe the culture of lying, stealing
electronically (i.e. the famous yahoo-yahoo) that is in vogue now, cheat at
examinations and tests. Others corrupt their minds through the viewing of weird
or pornographic pictures in the internet. These, by implication, has led some
of the Nigerian youths or adolescents in schools, to become corrupt,
promiscuous and immoral in behaviour or attitudes.
Not only that, the use
of ICT by the young ones may have made many adolescents to become deviants,
obtaining by tricks (OBT), prostitutes, bullies, disrespectful to authority
figures in the society and the school. All this come as a result of what they
hear, learn and view from the use of ICT materials that have invaded the entire
world today.
The above identified
problems gave rise to the study of ICT and moral behaviour of adolescents in
schools.
1.3
Purpose
of the Study
The major objectives
of this study include to:
(1)
find out if ICT influences students’ moral
behaviours.
(2)
examine whether a relationship exists between
ICT and students’ academic performance.
(3)
investigate whether gender difference exists
in the delinquent behaviours of students as a result of the use of information
communication technology.
(4)
determine whether there is relationship
between the use of ICT and adolescents’ social adjustment in the school.
1.4
Research
Questions
The following research
questions were raised:
(1)
Will the use of ICT influence students’ moral
behaviour?
(2)
Is there any relationship between the use of
ICT and students’ academic performance?
(3)
Will there be significant gender differences
in the delinquent behaviours of students due to the use of ICT?
(4)
Is there a relationship between the use of ICT
and adolescents’ social adjustment in the school?
1.5
Research
Hypotheses
The following
hypotheses were formulated in this study:
(1)
Information communication technology will not
have any significant influence on students’ moral behaviours.
(2)
There will be no significant relationship
between the use of ICT and students’ academic performance in school.
(3)
There will be no significant gender
differences in the delinquent behaviour of students due to the use of ICT in
school.
(4)
There will be no significant relationship
between the use of ICT and adolescents’ social adjustment in the school.
1.6
Significance
of the Study
This study will be
beneficial to the following:
The
Teachers: The teachers in our various institutions – primary,
secondary and tertiary, would benefit from the recommendations and findings of
this study. This is because the findings and recommendations of this study
would go a long way in unraveling to the teachers more on the influences of ICT
on the moral and religious behaviour of the adolescents in schools, especially
at the secondary school level.
The
Students: Would find this study very beneficial, because it will
serve as an eye opener to them. No doubt, the use of ICT is very key to the
academic careers of the adolescents but suffice it to say that the ills
inherent in the use of ICT cannot be over emphasized. So, this study intends to
fill the gap between the use of ICT and the immorality associated with it
amongst the youths in schools. This study will help students to develop
interest in the use and application of various information communication
technologies in storing and retrieval of necessary information regarding the
academic performance and educational careers.
The
School Authority will equally benefit from this study because
it will enable them to understand the way forward in solving the problem(s)
caused by the students’ use of the ICT and its effect on the general well being
of the school system.
Parents:
Parents will derive necessary or vital information from the findings and
conclusions of this study, because it will help them to be aware of the use and
importance of information communication technology to their children and wards.
Society: The
society will equally derive some vital benefits from the findings and
conclusions of this study. For instance, this study will be an eye opener to
the members of the larger society, in that it will help them to be in the know
concerning the use of information communication technology by students and
others at school and in the society.
1.7
Scope
of the Study
The study covered the
influence of ICT on moral behaviours of the adolescents in some selected
secondary schools in Oshodi Government Area of Lagos State.
1.8
Definition
of Terms
In this study,
operational terms were defined accordingly.
Technology: Technology in this study
refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It
also refers to material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware,
software, systems, methods of organization and techniques. In this context,
technology is regarded as the techniques used by individuals at school or the
society in order to be in line with the world new discovery.
Innovation: The term is used in
the study to refer to both radical and incremental changes to ICT products and
processes. In the organizational context, innovation is linked to performance
and growth through improvements in efficiency, productivity, quality,
competitive positioning, market share, etc.
Information
Communication Technology (ICT): ICT generally referred to as
Information Communication Technology and includes all electronic technologies
and equipment used in facilitating information processing and communication.
Moral
Behaviour: This is a
term used to denote the right behaviour or attitudes of an individual in a
given community. It is the upholding of ethics, values and norms in a decent
society. In this study, moral behaviour is defined as the way and manner an
individual carries his or her self basically on ones religions belief.
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