An Assessment of Internet Utilisation in Selected Agricultural Colleges of Plateau State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the patterns of Internet use among students of agriculture in some selected colleges of agriculture in Plateau State, Nigeria. A well-structured questionnaire was distributed among the 128 Higher National Diploma (HND) students of agriculture in colleges of agriculture in Plateau State. Questionnaires were given out to students using a simple random sampling technique. Simple frequency tables were used to analyse the data collected. A t-test and correlation were also performed on the data. The present study demonstrates and elaborates the various aspects of Internet use such as; most frequently used place for internet use, purpose for which the Internet is used, use of Internet services, problems faced by users and satisfaction level of users with Internet facility provided in the colleges. The study results revealed that 78.1% of the respondents had used the Internet for research, 45.3% had accessed the Internet at a cyber cafe, slow access speed had been the major problem faced by users (48.8%), students within the age group of 20 to 25 years had spent more time on the Internet than other age categories (43.8%), majority of the respondents utilized the World Wide Web service of the Internet (50.8%) and there is significant association (perfectly positive relationship) between Internet facility, awareness and Internet use. Some suggestions have been put forth to make the service more beneficial for the academic community of agricultural colleges under study.