ASSESSMENT OF DIGITAL FACILITIES AVAILABILITY AND PRINCIPALS’ COMPETENCE FOR DIGITALIZATION OF SECONDARY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION IN RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study assessed digital facilities availability and principals’ competence for digitalization of secondary school administration in Rivers State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. Population of the study was all the 291 principals in public senior secondary schools in Rivers State of Nigeria (Rivers State Senior Secondary Schools Board, Port Harcourt, 2024). Sample size of the study was all the 291 principals which were selected using census sampling technique. Digital Facilities Availability and Principals’ Competence for Digitalization of School Administration Questionnaire was used for data collection. The face and content validities of the instrument were determined by two experts in Educational Management, and Measurement and Evaluation in Rivers State University, Port Harcourt. The instrument yielded reliability coefficients of 0.70 for Availability of Digital Facilities Scale and 0.72 for Principals’ Competence for Digitalization of School Administration Scale through Cronbach Alpha method. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer the research questions, while Z-test statistic was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that digital facilities are available for digitalization of secondary school administration to a high extent, and that the extent of principals’ competence for digitalization of secondary school administration in Rivers State, Nigeria is low. It was recommended that: Principals should be trained on various digital facilities and skills to enhance their competence and capacity for digitalization of secondary school administration.