INTEGRATING EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN UNIVERSITIES: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS OF ROBOTICS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Innovations like emerging technologies with specific reference to robotics are changing the processes and activities in various sectors like business and medicine. Sadly, the level of integration of emerging technologies like robotics in the university system in Nigeria appears to be unclear. It is against this background, that the study investigated the strengths and weakness of integrating robotics in universities in Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised 235 lecturers from the department of educational management of policy and the department of educational foundations from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam Campus respectively. The instrument of data collection was a structured validated questionnaire developed by the researchers. The test of reliability of the instrument using Cronbach Alpha yielded reliability co-efficient of 0.81 and 0.84 for clusters, 1 and 2 with a general reliability co-efficient of 0.83. Mean, standard deviation and t-test were used to analyse data for the study. The finding of the study revealed that robotics can help universities promote hands-on learning experiences that stimulate critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity among students, assists universities to align academic curricula with the needs of industries that rely on automation and robotics technologies and encourages entrepreneurship by empowering students to develop innovative solutions and products. Findings further revealed that the weakness of integrating robotics in universities in Nigeria are lack of infrastructure to support the integration of robotics, lack of experts to facilitate the integration of robotics in universities, lack of funding. Furthermore, findings revealed no significant difference in the mean ratings of lecturers in Federal owned universities and State owned universities. The researchers therefore recommended among others that the Federal and State governments in collaboration with university authorities should prioritize investment in infrastructure to support the integration of robotics.