GLOBALIZATION, INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

To achieve a meaningful pace of economic growth, most developing countries throughout the world embark on various policy reforms, and one of the policy reforms adopted in Nigeria was globalization and trade liberalization. While such policies have not provided the desired effects due to their linkage effect, the adoption and implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to supplement government efforts in these economies has brought considerable results. However, this technical advancement is expected to have a rapid impact on Nigeria's economic development. The policy on ICT adoption began shortly after the civilian regime took control in the year 2000. The country's licensed telecommunication service providers have had some noticeable macroeconomic effects, such as job creation and the expansion of the scope of small and medium businesses, faster service delivery, lower transportation costs, increased security, and higher national output, as well as an increase in teledensity of both fixed and mobile lines. The model's findings revealed that current telecommunications investment had no effect on GDP growth, but that investments made in the preceding two years had a considerable impact on current GDP, even though government spending slowed growth. A similar discovery was made about computer usage and how it influences investment decisions in Nigeria's telecommunications sector.

Participation, inclusion, and success in emergency remote online teaching and learning

Covid-19 affected educational institutions worldwide, and many moved online engaging in Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL). It had a particular impact in Japan due to the low levels of computer usage in Japanese educational institutions and a reliance on traditional methods. This study uses semi-structured interviews with five participants to explore their perceptions of the move to online learning in a Japanese university context. Four factors emerged as significant: participants’ experiences prior to entering university; the importance of Social Networking Systems (SNS) in the process of becoming part of the university academic community; changes in spoken interactional patterns; and changes in learning patterns. It was found that the disruption due to ERTL led to fresh ways to learn and promoted an inclusive environment.

The effect of computerisation on the wage share in United Kingdom workplaces

This historical paper analyses the distributional consequences of computerisation on the wage share of income in United Kingdom (UK) workplaces in the first decade of this century. The reasons why computerisation might increase a firm’s income but reduce the share assigned to wages are still not well understood. The uniquely rich Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004–2011 includes firm-level measures of the main production inputs and outputs, and thus allows an analysis of the main mechanisms through which increased computer usage influenced the wage share of income in UK workplaces over this period. This analysis shows that the proportion of employees using computers impacted the wage share in ways that were at odds with two mainstream views: that computers complement capital, and that labour can be easily replaced by capital. The results show that the proportion of employees using computers reduced the wage share by disproportionally increasing the productivity of the least skilled employees, who were not proportionally compensated for their increase in productivity. The stability of the wage share, over the period of interest, is explained by the rise in a workplace’s share of professional employees and by a rise in work effort. This positive contribution to the wage share was counteracted by an increased share of employees using computers and by a reduction in the share of employees whose pay was negotiated by unions, thereby contributing to a decline in the wage share of firm income. JELcode J31

Satisfaction Levels of Sport Sciences University Students in Online Workshops for Substituting Practice-Oriented Activities during the COVID-19 Lockdown

Laboratory teaching in sport and exercise sciences universities is of fundamental importance as it provides students with the necessary hands-on skills that are indispensable to future kinesiologists. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students in lockdown missed the opportunity to acquire laboratory skills. Here we report the solutions adopted by a blended exercise science Master’s degree program of an online Italian university to ensure didactic continuity in the practice-oriented activities during the period of the COVID-19 lockdown. In order to mitigate this issue, laboratory sessions were replaced with online workshops and students’ satisfaction levels in this regard were investigated in the present study using an online survey conducted on 101 students during lockdown. The survey consisted of 7-point Likert scale items focusing on computer usage (CU), learning satisfaction (LS), social interaction (SI), and perceived value (PV). The analysis of the results revealed a good level of learning satisfaction of the students. Conversely, students perceived a moderate level of social interaction and had a moderate perception that online workshops can enhance their learning abilities. In conclusion, the results of the present study seem to indicate that online workshops can be considered a good and acceptable compromise during an emergency, although face-to-face activities remain the preferable learning delivery modality when dealing with the acquisition of hands-on skills.

A Study on Job Control Occupational Self-Efficacy and Job Performance: After the Covid-19 Pandemic

This empirical research study aims to explore the relationships between the concepts of occupational self-efficacy, job-control and performance during this abrupt transition in work behavior during Covid-19 Pandemic. More importantly IT skills and Computer literacy levels of the employees intervene as important moderators into this job-control performance research model and thus offers a new empirical contribution to the literature. The study sample consisted of 441 employees from different sectors who were working remotely from home during the Covid-19 Pandemic. PLS SEM is used for analyzing the results. Managers and especially human resource managers can benefit from the results of this research. Two of our main hypotheses and thus the intended major contributions of this work are supported. IT skills moderates the relationship between job control and job performance. Second, occupational self-efficacy mediates the relationship between job control and job performance. The computer usage ability level of the respondents produced significant differences on the relation between job control and performance. Results indicate the importance of developing training programs to increase the IT skills and computer usage levels of self-confident employees for higher performance with more self-efficacy. JEL classification numbers: M1, M19. Keywords: IT skills, Occupational self-efficacy, Job control, Work transition.

Information Seeking Behavior and Utilization of Social Media for Agricultural Information by Farmers of Prayagraj District of Uttar Pradesh

Social media is becoming very important implement in agriculture to edge people to people due to its capacity to connect with farmers and agribusiness people around the globe over hug geographical distances. At present time there are 2.078 billion social media user in the world. The study was conducting in purposely selected Prayagraj district of Uttar Pradesh of also purposely two selecting blocks two villages from each block. Selected for the study Thus, in all, four villages thirty farmers were selected randomly. Thus, total 120 respondents were selected randomly and interviewed with the help of well semi structured schedule. The statistical tools/technique was used to computing the data and information. Descriptive research design was followed for the analysis. Maximum number respondents communicate through social media and WhatsApp is highly exposed and adopted by the respondents in the study area. Smart phones, computer usage and internet should be promoted among stakeholders (esp. farmers).majority of the respondents information getting through Kisan SMS Portal. The highest utilization level of the respondents about social media programme was WhatsApp with a weighted mean score of 1.58 and it was ranked first, followed by the Kisan SMS Portal a weighted mean score was 1.43 with ranked was second, while YouTube was ranked third and so on.

Computer Security Practices in Senior High Schools in the Keta Municipality

Aims: To examine security practices in Senior High Schools in Keta Municicpality. Study design: Descriptive Survey Design. Place and duration of study: The study was undertaken in the Keta Municipality of Volta Region. Methodology: The researcher adopted quantitative research design. The target population for the study was made up of eight (8) senior high schools with four thousand two hundred (4200) senior high school students, teachers, administrators and account clerks in the Municipality. The total number of samples for the study was hundred (100) respondents. This comprises forty (40) teachers, forty (40) students, ten (10) ICT teachers, five (5) administrators and five (5) account clerks all from the five selected schools. The research instrument used for the data collection was questionnaire. The usage of a data analysis application known as the International Business Machine, Statistical Package for Social Sciences, assisted the data analysis (IBM SPSS). Results: The results revealed that 35(87.5%) of students agreed to the fact that they used computer with permission, 32(64%) of teachers emphasized that there were security passwords on computers in their schools, and 27(82.5%) of students indicated that there are codes of conduct guiding computer usage in their schools. However, 20(40%) of teachers emphasized that intrusion detective system was not used on computers in their schools to detect network attack and that 7(70%) of administrators and account clerks attested to the fact that Antivirus is installed on computers in my school Conclusion: Many schools in the Keta Municipality do not have enough computers let alone sustainable power generation in the schools and this has affected effective teaching and learning and quality education delivering.

EFFECT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY ON THE ATTAINMENT OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGS) IN NIGERIA, (A CASE STUDY OF PAMPAIDA MILLENNIUM VILLAGE, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA.

The study examines the effects of information and communication technology (ICT) on the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Nigeria from 2006 to 20015 with specific focus on effects of mobile phone, Internet, Computer and Radio on MDGs. Four research questions and four hypotheses were tested at 5% level of significance. The design for this study was a survey design while the population was made up of Five Thousand Six Hundred and Sixty-Six (5,666) people living in Pampaida Millennium Village. The sample size was Three Hundred and Seventy-Four (374). The sampling technique used is convenient sampling. The method of data collection used was questionnaire for primary data. Method of data analysis were percentages, linear regression and analysis of variance. The data analysis revealed that the ICT factors that have meaningful impact on MDGs were Mobile phones, Internet and Radio. Mobile phones were the widely use ICTs within the study area followed by Radio and Internet respectively. Computer usage within the village was quite low; this calls for integration of computer education in adult and non-formal system of education, which is the major source of education within the community