A SURVEY OF TEACHERS’ AWARENESS AND USE OF ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

A SURVEY OF TEACHERS’ AWARENESS AND USE OF ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHING CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to find out teachers’ awareness and use of assistive technology in teaching children with special needs in North Central Nigeria. The objective of the study was to find out teachers’ competence in assistive technology devices. Six research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. A cross sectional survey research design was adopted for the study and the population for the study was made up of all regular and special education teachers teaching children with special needs in the seven states that make up the North Central Zone. Using the stratified random sampling technique, a sample of 450 teachers was selected from four states out of the 792 teachers teaching persons with special needs in the zone to participate in the study. Four instruments developed by the researcher were used to collect the data to answer the six research questions and test the four hypotheses raised. Two of the instruments centered on teachers’ assistive technology awareness and competency while the remaining two were observation schedules to check the availability of the devices and teachers competence in using them. Data for the research was collected through the administration of the questionnaires and observation of teachers teaching using some of the assistive technology devices in their schools. Research questions were answered using simple percentage and mean scores. Hypotheses one and four were tested using the t-test for related sample while hypothesis three was tested using ANOVA at 0.05 level of significance. The models correlation and ttest were estimated using the estimated likelihood method of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. The results of the study revealed that majority (59%) of the teachers were aware of assistive technology devices while (41%) reported that they were not. Teachers claimed that they use assistive technology devices but majority (69%) of them reported that they are not competent in using them. The devices were found to be grossly inadequate in almost all the schools. Teachers were also faced with many problems like lack of training, lack of competency and lack of devices, among others, that hinder them from effectively using assistive technology devices while teaching children with xvii special needs. No significant difference was found between the assistive technology awareness of teachers in regular and special schools. Similarly, this research discovered that there was a significant difference in the provision of assistive technology devices between schools located in urban and those in rural areas. Based on these findings, the researcher concluded that though majority of the teachers in North Central Zone were aware of assistive technology devices, they lacked competence in their use. The implication of these findings is the need for teacher training institutions to begin to include assistive technology in their teacher training programme and government and voluntary organizations to provide these devices for teachers and students to use in their classes.

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