Use of Information Communication Technology in Academic and Social activities: with reference to Undergraduates of University of Kelaniya

Abstract

variaThe collective use of information and communication technology (ICT) in higher education has been explored largely in relation to undergraduates’ experience of academic activities and social activities. This research has come up with the increasing usage of computer laboratories by the undergraduates and further need of identifying whether the increment of usage of ICT is due to academic activities of undergraduates or with any other reasons. The significance of this study is at university or institutional level as administrative representatives need to identify the facilities offered by the university have been effectively utilized by the undergraduates. The key objective of this study is identifying the undergraduates’ use of ICT in academic and social activities. The research study conducted at the University of Kelaniya as a case and therefore the target population of the research was undergraduates in University of Kelaniya. Among them 200 undergraduates were selected by the convenience sampling technique included to nonprobability sampling techniques. Independent bles of this study are Demographic characteristics of undergraduates. On the other hand the dependent variables are use of ICT for academic activities and use of ICT for social activities. In this research six (6) main hypotheses have been formulated for testing and this study is done as a field study. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 and Microsoft Excel computer packages were used as tools to analyze data. The research has found that there is no significant relationship between demographic characteristics and use of ICT in social activities and also emphasized that there is a significant relationship of use of ICT in academic activities with year and faculty study. The conclusion gained from this study is that the efforts made by the administration of the university in order to ensure effective utilization of facilities provided by the university have not being successful. Therefore the recommendations for the respective personal in the University are to promote effective strategies to enhance the awareness of undergraduates about available facilities for ICT in the University.