Age and Gender as Correlates of English Language Teachers’ Disposition to Computers for Pedagogy in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

The determined relationships of age and gender with English Language teachers’ disposition
to the use of computers in western Nigeria. A total of 240 teachers was sampled through
stratified random sampling for the survey design of the ex-post facto type. A twenty-four-item
self-constructed questionnaire titled Language Teachers’ Computer Attitudes Questionnaire
(LTCAQ) was used for data collection. Copies of the instrument that yielded 92.4 Cronbach
alpha were administered to the teachers. Only 217 of the 240 copies were returned and the
data obtained were subjected to frequency counts, percentages and chi-square statistical
tools to answer one research question and test two null hypotheses. The findings showed that
the teachers generally had positive disposition to computers, gender had significant relationship
with the teachers’ disposition to computers while age did not. It was concluded that with
more advocacy, the teachers can be helped to translate their positive disposition to extensive
actual use of the facility. It was then recommended that government should help teachers to
easily acquire computers. English Language teacher education programmes should adequately
prepare pre-service teachers for effective and efficient deployment of computers for language
teaching.