Counselling students remains a pre-eminence for most tertiary institutions in Ghana to the extent... more Counselling students remains a pre-eminence for most tertiary institutions in Ghana to the extent that institutions now have counselling units that extend to the departmental level. This study used the K-prototype machine learning algorithm to cluster students’ behaviour based on 28 relevant attributes and further proposed a classification model. The analysis of the experimental outcomes using the elbow method reveals the formation of three distinct clusters with decreasing intra-cluster similarities and increasing inter-cluster distances. The first cluster uniquely consists of active learners with three or more roommates, primarily in the first year. The second cluster with the highest membership consists mainly of second-year students who exhibit passive classroom conduct and reside in a two-occupancy hostel. The third cluster contains a mixture of third and final-year students who are highly passive in class and live in a tenancy occupancy of two. After clustering, the K-nearest ...
Recently, students dropping out of school at the tertiary level without prior notice or permissio... more Recently, students dropping out of school at the tertiary level without prior notice or permission has intrigued deep concern among academic authorities, instructors, and counsellors. It has therefore become necessary to understand factors that lead to high attrition rates among learners and identify at-risk students for urgent academic counselling. In providing a proactive response to learner attrition, the study deployed a machine learning algorithm with high model accuracy to predict students’ drop-out rates and identify dominant attributes that affect learner attrition and retention. An attrition model was built and validated among support vector machine, decision tree, multilayer perceptron, and random forest algorithms. The machine learning algorithms were tested for accuracy, precision, recall, F-measure, and ROC using the 10-fold and the 5-fold comparative cross-validation techniques. In addition to the cross-validation technique, the chi-square feature selection mechanism w...
International Journal of ICT Research in Africa and the Middle East
To examine special education pre-service teachers’ acceptance of assistive technology, this study... more To examine special education pre-service teachers’ acceptance of assistive technology, this study theorized and established associations between important variables of assistive technology acceptance, including the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, result demonstrability, and behavioural intention. The researcher used the convenient sampling strategy to pick the partakers. 250 questionnaires were given out to the respondents and 139 questionnaires were received. A partial least square technique was applied for the data analysis. The outcome of the inquiry was that perceived ease of use substantially influenced perceived usefulness of assistive technology; perceived usefulness was significantly associated with attitude, and result demonstrability was substantially associated with perceived ease of use. This study added to the current body of knowledge regarding the technology acceptance model for explaining intended assistive technology acceptance in educational ...
2019 International Conference on Computing, Computational Modelling and Applications (ICCMA), 2019
This study investigated university students' actual use of learning management system using U... more This study investigated university students' actual use of learning management system using Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. Quantitative and qualitative research strategies were adopted using close-ended and open-ended questionnaire to collect data from 149 students who were learning management system (LMS) users. Random sampling approach was used to select the students. The quantitative data were analyzed using structural equation model and the qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The results from quantitative analysis showed that performance expectancy, effort expectancy and institutional support influenced students' actual use of LMS while social influence and infrastructure support did not influence students' actual use. But, the results from qualitative analysis found lack of training, unavailability of internet connection and poor electricity supply as major concerns that affect students' actual usage of LMS....
International journal of education and development using information and communication technology, 2012
This study was conducted to explore secondary school teachers’ innovative use of computer technol... more This study was conducted to explore secondary school teachers’ innovative use of computer technologies in classroom. Questionnaires were distributed to 273 teachers in fourteen schools comprising 5 urban schools, 5 semi-urban schools and 4 rural schools. 241 were returned, and 231 valid questionnaires were used for data analysis, representing 84.6% of total questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, multivariate analyzes of variances, independent samples t-tests and multiple regression were used to analyze data. Of the 231 teachers, 66% were males and 34% were females. The study found that male teachers (mean = 3.77, std = 1.36) have more access to computers than the female teachers (mean = 3.21, std = 1.28) but female teachers (mean = 1.85, std = .854) use ICT for evaluative purposes significantly more than male teachers (mean = 1.59, std = .798). Also a correlation analysis revealed high positive correlation between teachers’ computer skills, computer experience and computer access (...
International journal of education and development using information and communication technology, 2012
Global investment in ICT to improve teaching and learning in schools have been initiated by many ... more Global investment in ICT to improve teaching and learning in schools have been initiated by many governments. Despite all these investments on ICT infrastructure, equipments and professional development to improve education in many countries, ICT adoption and integration in teaching and learning have been limited. This article reviews personal, institutional and technological factors that encourage teachers’ use of computer technology in teaching and learning processes. Also teacher-level, school-level and system-level factors that prevent teachers from ICT use are reviewed. These barriers include lack of teacher ICT skills; lack of teacher confidence; lack of pedagogical teacher training; l lack of suitable educational software; limited access to ICT; rigid structure of traditional education systems; restrictive curricula, etc. The article concluded that knowing the extent to which these barriers affect individuals and institutions may help in taking a decision on how to tackle them.
Purpose This paper aims to develop and test a research model to explore the factors that influenc... more Purpose This paper aims to develop and test a research model to explore the factors that influence pre-service teachers’ intention to use learning management system (LMS). Design/methodology/approach A cross-section study was conducted. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from participants. The total number of participants was 361 pre-service teachers. Partial least square structural equation model was used to analyze the data. Findings The findings of this study found that the research model explained approximately 43% of the variance in behavioral intention. Also, the findings revealed that attitude and social influence had an effect on behavioral intention to use technology, but the facilitating condition had no effect on behavior intention to use technology. Finally, performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence had an effect on attitude while facilitating condition had no effect on attitude. Originality/value In technology acceptance research, unifi...
INTRODUCTIONIn the twenty-first century, education cannot be separated from technology. Rapid gro... more INTRODUCTIONIn the twenty-first century, education cannot be separated from technology. Rapid growth in information and communication technology (ICT) has made the world knowledge-driven. As ICT continues to reshape economies, it is necessary for citizens to be highly competent in the use of the technology. To deal with this issue, the effort of integrating ICT has received great attention in educational systems in many nations. The reason for this development is that ICT has the capability to revolutionize the education sector (Kaur, 2011) by improving the quality and transforming the teaching and learning methods (Reynolds, Treharne, & Tripp, 2003).Research has indicated that an essential factor that impact teachers' acceptance of ICT is the quality and quantity of teachers' ICT experiences incorporated in their teacher training programs (Agyei & Voogt, 2011, Drent & Meelissen, 2008). Regrettably, studies have shown that both teacher trainees and young teachers are under-u...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate undergraduate nursing students’ use of mobile... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate undergraduate nursing students’ use of mobile learning (m-learning) and the factors contributing to their use of m-learning. Design/methodology/approach In total, 586 nursing students from three universities in Ghana participated in this study. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics, sample t-test and multiple regression were used to analyze the data. Findings The research found that most students owned smartphones. Mobile technology was mainly used for doing homework. The result indicates that gender differences exist in terms of perceived usefulness of m-learning. In addition, age differences exist with regard to the perceived ease of use of m-learning. Furthermore, students showed positive attitudes toward the use of technology. Finally, perceived usefulness and attitudes toward the use of technology predicted students’ intention to use m-learning. Originality/value Despite the abundance of resea...
Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the ability of the integration of technology acce... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the ability of the integration of technology acceptance model (TAM) and theory of reasoned action (TRA) to predict and explain university students’ intention to use m-learning in schools. Design/methodology/approach In total, 487 students participated in this study. A seven-likert scale survey questionnaire which comprised of 23 items was completed by the students. Structural equation modeling was used as the statistical technique to analyze the data. Findings The study found that the resulting model was fairly able to predict and explain behavioral intention (BI) among students in Ghana. In addition, this study found that attitudes toward use and subjective norm significantly influenced students’ BI to use mobile learning. The model explained 23.0 percent of the variance in BI, 33.8 percent in perceived usefulness and 47.6 percent in attitudes toward use. Of all the three endogenous variables, attitude had the greatest effect on BI. O...
Counselling students remains a pre-eminence for most tertiary institutions in Ghana to the extent... more Counselling students remains a pre-eminence for most tertiary institutions in Ghana to the extent that institutions now have counselling units that extend to the departmental level. This study used the K-prototype machine learning algorithm to cluster students’ behaviour based on 28 relevant attributes and further proposed a classification model. The analysis of the experimental outcomes using the elbow method reveals the formation of three distinct clusters with decreasing intra-cluster similarities and increasing inter-cluster distances. The first cluster uniquely consists of active learners with three or more roommates, primarily in the first year. The second cluster with the highest membership consists mainly of second-year students who exhibit passive classroom conduct and reside in a two-occupancy hostel. The third cluster contains a mixture of third and final-year students who are highly passive in class and live in a tenancy occupancy of two. After clustering, the K-nearest ...
Recently, students dropping out of school at the tertiary level without prior notice or permissio... more Recently, students dropping out of school at the tertiary level without prior notice or permission has intrigued deep concern among academic authorities, instructors, and counsellors. It has therefore become necessary to understand factors that lead to high attrition rates among learners and identify at-risk students for urgent academic counselling. In providing a proactive response to learner attrition, the study deployed a machine learning algorithm with high model accuracy to predict students’ drop-out rates and identify dominant attributes that affect learner attrition and retention. An attrition model was built and validated among support vector machine, decision tree, multilayer perceptron, and random forest algorithms. The machine learning algorithms were tested for accuracy, precision, recall, F-measure, and ROC using the 10-fold and the 5-fold comparative cross-validation techniques. In addition to the cross-validation technique, the chi-square feature selection mechanism w...
International Journal of ICT Research in Africa and the Middle East
To examine special education pre-service teachers’ acceptance of assistive technology, this study... more To examine special education pre-service teachers’ acceptance of assistive technology, this study theorized and established associations between important variables of assistive technology acceptance, including the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, result demonstrability, and behavioural intention. The researcher used the convenient sampling strategy to pick the partakers. 250 questionnaires were given out to the respondents and 139 questionnaires were received. A partial least square technique was applied for the data analysis. The outcome of the inquiry was that perceived ease of use substantially influenced perceived usefulness of assistive technology; perceived usefulness was significantly associated with attitude, and result demonstrability was substantially associated with perceived ease of use. This study added to the current body of knowledge regarding the technology acceptance model for explaining intended assistive technology acceptance in educational ...
2019 International Conference on Computing, Computational Modelling and Applications (ICCMA), 2019
This study investigated university students' actual use of learning management system using U... more This study investigated university students' actual use of learning management system using Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. Quantitative and qualitative research strategies were adopted using close-ended and open-ended questionnaire to collect data from 149 students who were learning management system (LMS) users. Random sampling approach was used to select the students. The quantitative data were analyzed using structural equation model and the qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The results from quantitative analysis showed that performance expectancy, effort expectancy and institutional support influenced students' actual use of LMS while social influence and infrastructure support did not influence students' actual use. But, the results from qualitative analysis found lack of training, unavailability of internet connection and poor electricity supply as major concerns that affect students' actual usage of LMS....
International journal of education and development using information and communication technology, 2012
This study was conducted to explore secondary school teachers’ innovative use of computer technol... more This study was conducted to explore secondary school teachers’ innovative use of computer technologies in classroom. Questionnaires were distributed to 273 teachers in fourteen schools comprising 5 urban schools, 5 semi-urban schools and 4 rural schools. 241 were returned, and 231 valid questionnaires were used for data analysis, representing 84.6% of total questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, multivariate analyzes of variances, independent samples t-tests and multiple regression were used to analyze data. Of the 231 teachers, 66% were males and 34% were females. The study found that male teachers (mean = 3.77, std = 1.36) have more access to computers than the female teachers (mean = 3.21, std = 1.28) but female teachers (mean = 1.85, std = .854) use ICT for evaluative purposes significantly more than male teachers (mean = 1.59, std = .798). Also a correlation analysis revealed high positive correlation between teachers’ computer skills, computer experience and computer access (...
International journal of education and development using information and communication technology, 2012
Global investment in ICT to improve teaching and learning in schools have been initiated by many ... more Global investment in ICT to improve teaching and learning in schools have been initiated by many governments. Despite all these investments on ICT infrastructure, equipments and professional development to improve education in many countries, ICT adoption and integration in teaching and learning have been limited. This article reviews personal, institutional and technological factors that encourage teachers’ use of computer technology in teaching and learning processes. Also teacher-level, school-level and system-level factors that prevent teachers from ICT use are reviewed. These barriers include lack of teacher ICT skills; lack of teacher confidence; lack of pedagogical teacher training; l lack of suitable educational software; limited access to ICT; rigid structure of traditional education systems; restrictive curricula, etc. The article concluded that knowing the extent to which these barriers affect individuals and institutions may help in taking a decision on how to tackle them.
Purpose This paper aims to develop and test a research model to explore the factors that influenc... more Purpose This paper aims to develop and test a research model to explore the factors that influence pre-service teachers’ intention to use learning management system (LMS). Design/methodology/approach A cross-section study was conducted. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from participants. The total number of participants was 361 pre-service teachers. Partial least square structural equation model was used to analyze the data. Findings The findings of this study found that the research model explained approximately 43% of the variance in behavioral intention. Also, the findings revealed that attitude and social influence had an effect on behavioral intention to use technology, but the facilitating condition had no effect on behavior intention to use technology. Finally, performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence had an effect on attitude while facilitating condition had no effect on attitude. Originality/value In technology acceptance research, unifi...
INTRODUCTIONIn the twenty-first century, education cannot be separated from technology. Rapid gro... more INTRODUCTIONIn the twenty-first century, education cannot be separated from technology. Rapid growth in information and communication technology (ICT) has made the world knowledge-driven. As ICT continues to reshape economies, it is necessary for citizens to be highly competent in the use of the technology. To deal with this issue, the effort of integrating ICT has received great attention in educational systems in many nations. The reason for this development is that ICT has the capability to revolutionize the education sector (Kaur, 2011) by improving the quality and transforming the teaching and learning methods (Reynolds, Treharne, & Tripp, 2003).Research has indicated that an essential factor that impact teachers' acceptance of ICT is the quality and quantity of teachers' ICT experiences incorporated in their teacher training programs (Agyei & Voogt, 2011, Drent & Meelissen, 2008). Regrettably, studies have shown that both teacher trainees and young teachers are under-u...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate undergraduate nursing students’ use of mobile... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate undergraduate nursing students’ use of mobile learning (m-learning) and the factors contributing to their use of m-learning. Design/methodology/approach In total, 586 nursing students from three universities in Ghana participated in this study. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics, sample t-test and multiple regression were used to analyze the data. Findings The research found that most students owned smartphones. Mobile technology was mainly used for doing homework. The result indicates that gender differences exist in terms of perceived usefulness of m-learning. In addition, age differences exist with regard to the perceived ease of use of m-learning. Furthermore, students showed positive attitudes toward the use of technology. Finally, perceived usefulness and attitudes toward the use of technology predicted students’ intention to use m-learning. Originality/value Despite the abundance of resea...
Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the ability of the integration of technology acce... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the ability of the integration of technology acceptance model (TAM) and theory of reasoned action (TRA) to predict and explain university students’ intention to use m-learning in schools. Design/methodology/approach In total, 487 students participated in this study. A seven-likert scale survey questionnaire which comprised of 23 items was completed by the students. Structural equation modeling was used as the statistical technique to analyze the data. Findings The study found that the resulting model was fairly able to predict and explain behavioral intention (BI) among students in Ghana. In addition, this study found that attitudes toward use and subjective norm significantly influenced students’ BI to use mobile learning. The model explained 23.0 percent of the variance in BI, 33.8 percent in perceived usefulness and 47.6 percent in attitudes toward use. Of all the three endogenous variables, attitude had the greatest effect on BI. O...
Uploads