Information And Communication Technology Skills Needs of Administrative Assistants in Colleges of Education in Bayelsa And Rivers State

Abstract 

The study was carried out to identify information and communication technology skills needs of administrative assistants in Colleges of Education in Bayelsa and Rivers States. Four research questions and four null hypotheses were developed to guide the study. Survey research design was adopted in the study. The population for the study was 316 subjects, which comprised of 198 administrative officers and assistants from the Federal College of Education (Technical) Omoku, Rivers State and 118 administrative officers and assistants from Isaac Jasper Boro College of Education, Sagbama, Bayelsa State. Random sampling technique was adopted in sampling 196 respondents which include: 98 administrative officers and 98 assistants from the two colleges that constituted the sample for the study. The instrument for data collection was a 41-item structured questionnaire. The instrument was divided into two categories of ‘Level of Importance’ and ‘Level of Performance’ and validated by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was ascertained using Cronbach alpha method and reliability coefficient of 0.80 was obtained. Out of the 196 copies of the questionnaire administered, 185 copies were retrieved representing 94.4% rate of return. Data collected were analyzed using mean to answer the research questions while t-test statistics was used in testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Based on the data collected and analysed, the study identified: ten database management skills, seven spreadsheet management skills, ten computer networking skills and eight internet skills that are needed for effective performance of administrative assistants in Colleges of education in Bayelsa and Rivers States. There were no significant differences (p