Information and Communication Technology (ICT) usage on students records management effectiveness in the Nigerian Universities

Abstract

Effective management of students‟ records underpins decision making, protects rights of students and helps universities conduct business and services in a consistent and equitable manner. Thus, this study investigated the influence of information and communication technology (ICT) on students‟ records management effectiveness in Nigerian universities. A survey design was employed for the study. The population consisted of 1,123 students‟ records officers and 470 university administrators from randomly selected federal, state and private universities in south-south geo-political zone of Nigeria. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select the sample for the study consisting of 564 records officers and 237 administrators giving a sum of 801. A total of 531 copies of the questionnaire were validly completed and returned making it 66.3% successful. Data was collected with a self- structured questionnaire validated with overall Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient =0.81. Descriptive statistics and regression analyses were employed to analyze data processed from responses of the survey. The results revealed that at the 0.05 level of significance, the p-values of (0.9324, 0.8478 and 0.0004) indicated information and communication technology (ICT) had negative and insignificant influence on students‟ records management effectiveness in the federal and state universities, but had significant and positive influence on in the private universities. Since this study has established that the Nigerian Universities operate both paper and electronic records management system, the researcher recommended that government should come up with a model for the effective combination of electronic and manual records management procedure for students‟ records that will suit the Nigerian environment.