OFFICE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE NIGER DELTA REGION OF NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between office technology and socio-economic development in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. Thirteen specific objectives, research questions and hypotheses guided the study. Correlation study design was adopted for the study. The population and sample of the study were made up of 109 Ph.D. business education students from the 6 Universities offering postgraduate programme in business education as at 2021/2022 academic session in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. Census sampling technique was used because the population was a manageable size. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled Business Education Programme and Socio-Economic Development Questionnaire (BEPSEDQ). The instrument was validated by three experts, one expert from Measurement and Evaluation and two others from Business Education, all from the Faculty of Education, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to obtain (r) value of 0.76 to test the reliability of stability while Cronbach Alpha test which gave a reliability coefficient of 0.74 was used to test for the reliability of internal consistency. A total of 109 copies of the instruments were administered but only101 copies were retrieved and this constituted 93% of the entire copies administered. The data collected were analysed using PPMC (r) analysis to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance, while for Multivariate analysis, partial correlation was used to test the mediating effect of government policies on the two variables whose relationship were investigated. The findings revealed among others that business education programme proxies such as office technology have positive and significant relationship with human capital and entrepreneurship development as proxies of socio-economic development of the Niger Delta area. The findings also revealed among others that business education programme proxies such as accounting education have negative and no significant relationship with job creation as proxy of socio-economic development.