AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ONLINE FACILITATION AT THE MAKURDI STUDY CENTRE OF NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper assesses the effectiveness of online facilitation at Makurdi Study Centre of the National Open University of Nigeria. Three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. A survey design was used for the study. The population of the study covered all the 767 facilitators at NOUN headquarters Abuja, and 6,474 students at the Makurdi study center. The population sample was 325 which were made up of 263 students and 62 facilitators selected through a simple random sampling technique. Three sets of research instruments namely; Facilitators Online competence Questionnaire (FOCOMQ), Online Facilitation Effectiveness Students’ Questionnaire (OFESQ) and Students Access to ICT Facilities Questionnaire (SA-ICT-FQ) were developed and used to elicit opinion from the respondents. Statistical mean and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used to analyse the research questions and test the hypotheses. The findings shows that although online facilitation at the Makurdi study centre is effective, inadequate access to ICT facilities, low level of interaction during online sessions, and non-user friendly nature of the online facilitation platform constitute major hindrances towards achieving effective online facilitation. Therefore, the study has recommended among others adequate access to ICT facilities for students in study centres; de-emphasize the use print materials and enhancement of students’ capacity for optimum utilisation of these ICT facilities