ABSTRACT
Preparing the youths of developing economies for the emerging global digital economy is a challenge that quality education with digital learning skills can resolve. However, providing such quality education is increasingly demanding for these economies. Mitigating this challenge, therefore, will require a social re-engineering of the educational system of developing economies. Critical to this re-engineering is a comprehensive appraisal of their educational system's support for digital learning, particularly at the pre-tertiary level. This study, therefore, estimated and examined the digital learning culture (DLC) index of secondary education in Nigeria – a typical developing economy – and designed a digital learning intervention framework christened Every Class Digital Learning (ECDL) to help secondary school students across communities in Nigeria equitably imbibe the culture of learning and problem-solving using digital technology as a tool. The study adopted the questionnaire survey, specifically the stratified random sampling and empirical research methods. First, two questionnaires were designed and administered: one for secondary school students (N = 2220) and the other for secondary school teachers (N = 740). Both questionnaires were aggregated from standard validated questionnaires for the Technology Acceptance Model, Theory of Planned Behavior, Theory of Reasoned Actions, Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Model, Information Systems Success Model, UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers, and Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge framework. The aggregated questions from the standard questionnaires were streamlined and specially tailored to DLC for the student questionnaire and digital teaching and evaluation culture for the teacher questionnaire. The resultant questionnaires were vetted and approved for the survey by the research supervisor. Both questionnaires consist of three sections: Section A captures respondents’ educational demographic data, and Section B consists of a set of indicators (35 for xv the student questionnaire and 55 for the teacher questionnaire) weighted on a 5-point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. In contrast, Section C captures the respondent’s school details. A total of 2,107 completed students’ questionnaires and 666 completed secondary schoolteachers' questionnaires from the six levels of secondary education across communities in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria were retrieved. Thereafter, respondents’ data were extracted from the questionnaires, processed using arithmetic and harmonic means, and then normalized to estimate the DLC index of secondary education across the communities and zones of Nigeria. Furthermore, the calculated indices were analyzed for DLC divide using the two-tail t-test. Finally, the ECDL was designed using the empirical research method. The DLC index of secondary education in Nigeria has been estimated to be 0.21, signaling a low DLC among Nigerian youths. The study further established evidence of a statistically significant digital divide in DLC of secondary education among the zones of Nigeria. Overall, a digital intervention framework for secondary education in developing economies, ECDL, now exists for implementation to equitably prepare the youths of developing economies for the emerging global digital economy.
