Demographic variables (age, gender and academic qualification) have no effect on the determinants of ICT use in teaching amongst academics.

There are many models and theories of information systems (ISs) that have been used to explain success factors for acceptance and the use of ICTs. But the one adopted as the theoretical lens for this study is the UTAUT proposed by Venkatesh et al. (2003). This is because of its suitability in educational settings, especially within Africa (Liebenberg, Benade & Ellis 2018). Moreover, UTAUT is an integrated theory resulting from the constructs of eight individual theories of IS, namely theory of planned behaviour (TPB), technology acceptance model (TAM), innovation diffusion theory (IDT), social cognitive theory (SCT), theory of reasoned action (TRA), the model of PC utilisation (MPCU), combined TAM and TPB (C-TAM-TPB) and motivational model (MM) motivation theory. Unified theory of acceptance and the use of technology engages a more pragmatic approach in providing a better understanding of the factors that could predict the success of technology use than other IS theories and models (Samaradiwakara & Gunawardena 2014). Similar studies (Kocaleva, Stojanovic & Zdravev 2015; Ouedraogo 2017; Oye, Iahad & Rahim 2014) have used the UTAUT model to examine the factors determining ICT acceptance and use. These studies demonstrate that the UTAUT consists of robust and valid parameters that may be used by researchers interested in understanding success factors for technology acceptance and use. Venkatesh et al. (2003) discussed four core constructs of UTAUT, namely performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI) and facilitating conditions (FCs), which play a more prominent role in determining the success of ICT use in any organisation. Unified theory of acceptance and the use of technology also postulate that gender, age, experience and voluntariness of use act as moderating variables in determining the influence of the core constructs of UTAUT on technology adoption and use. This study focussed on PE, EE, SI and FC in determining the success of ICT use in an academic environment. The four core factors of UTAUT are described as follows:

The study was carried out in south-west Nigeria. South-west Nigeria is made up of six states: Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states. Two universities, the University of Ibadan (UI), a public university in Oyo state, and Covenant University (CU), a private university situated in Ogun state, were purposively selected as the study sites. The UI was founded in 1948, whereas CU was established in 2002 as a result of the reformation in the educational sector in Nigeria. The UI was selected because it is the first and oldest public university in Nigeria, and both universities have made laudable efforts in ICT investment. Academics from three faculties (Arts, Science and Technology) that comprise the majority of disciplines that are common to both universities were purposively chosen.

A mixed method approach consisting of a survey and semi-structured interview were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative aspect was dominant and the qualitative was engrained within it. The mixed method approach was found to be the most suitable for this study’s purpose as it helps to minimise the shortcomings of both approaches and provide a better understanding of research questions (Creswell 2014). This view is supported by Oshinaike and Adekunmisi (2012) who also adopted the mixed-methods research approach. The population of the study was 502 academics for the UI and for CU it is 230, making a total of 732 academics from both universities. By using Israel’s (1992) sample sizes table, 267 academics made up the sample size for this study. Respondents in the survey were chosen by using the systematic random sampling technique. The questionnaire was adapted from Venkatesh et al. (2003) and Birch and Irvine (2009). It comprises items of the UTAUT and four main constructs, namely PE, EE, SI and FC, with minimal rephrasing to suit the purpose of the study. Prior to data collection, the internal consistency and reliability of the items of the instrument developed for this research were determined in a pilot study conducted at the University of Lagos amongst 30 academics and 3 university management staff, chosen because of the similarity in characteristics with the sample population. The Cronbach alpha results obtained were 0.97 for PE, 0.80 for EE, 0.74 for SI and 0.74 for FC.

A total of 183 questionnaires were distributed at the UI, 162 were returned, but only 131 were found suitable for the purpose of data analysis. The researcher administered 84 questionnaires at CU and all of them were returned and found useful for the purpose of data analysis. Overall, 267 questionnaires were distributed, and 246 were returned out of which 215 questionnaires were found suitable for data analysis. For the qualitative study, an interview guide was used for consistency of questions and responses. The interviewees were deans of the selected faculties, the director for centre for ICT and the university librarian, and data were collected through the census from 10 out of 11 participants. This category of people were considered key informants because they are involved in strategic decision-making, policy development and implementation in the university. The interview reponses were recorded by using a research diary and a handheld device with due consent of the interviewees. The quantitative data were analysed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software to generate both descriptive (frequencies and percentages) and inferential statistics. The semistructured interview data were analysed by using content analysis. An ethical guideline that involved the use of informed consent, voluntariness of participation in the study, protection of respondents’ identities and freedom to withdraw from the study at any time as proposed by Creswell (2014) was adopted for this study.

An ethical guideline that involved use of informed consent, voluntariness of participation in the study, protection of respondents’ identities and freedom to withdraw from the study at any time as proposed by Creswell (2014) was adopted for this study (Ethical Clearance Number: HSS/1484/014D).

The study found that more male respondents participated in the study with (95% or 72.5%) from the UI and 62 (73.8%) from CU than female academics. A majority of the respondents were in the age of 36–46 years with the UI having a proportion of 67 (51.1%) and CU had 45 (53.6%), whereas those between 58 and 68 years had the least proportion. Results further showed that the designation of the respondents ranged from assistant lecturers to those in the professorial cadre. A majority of the academics were in the lecturer grade II category with 36 (27.5%) at the UI and 23 (27.5%) from CU followed by assistant lecturer cadre. Further findings showed that a majority of the respondents with 91 (69.5%) from the UI and 37 (44.0%) from CU had a PhD degree as their highest educational qualification. The study found that a majority of the respondents are from the Faculty of Science/Natural and Applied Science, with the UI having 64 (48.8%) whereas CU had 39 (46.4%) as shown in Table 1. The findings showed considerable combination across demographic variables; hence, data collected can be regarded as reliable for the purpose of this study.

Performance expectancy was measured by using five items out of which a descriptive analysis of the average score of the statement ‘I find ICTs useful in teaching’ with the highest mean score, and the least deviation from the mean (0.799) followed by ‘ICTs enable me to accomplish tasks such as teaching more efficiently’ with x¯ = 4.52 and SD = 0.815 and ‘use of ICTs enhances my teaching in terms of content and delivery’ with x¯ = 4.51 and SD = with x¯ = 4.52 and SD = 0.815 indicate that the use of ICT in teaching is beneficial to academics in both private and public universities.

The mean value of responses to the variable EE showed that ‘learning to use ICTs is easy for me’ (x¯ = 4.07 and standard deviation 0.971); ‘ICTs are generally easy to use’ (x¯ = 4.00 and SD = 0.985); and ‘I do not find the use of ICTs in my teaching a frustrating endeavour’ (x¯ = 3.88 and SD = 0.989) had the highest means. The results indicate that more academics perceive ICTs to be easy to use.

Social influence was measured with four items out of which the statement ‘people who are important to me such as my Dean, HOD and my colleagues think I should use ICTs in my teaching’ (x¯ = 3.85 and SD = 1.167) had the highest mean. This was followed by the statement ‘my students particularly think I should use ICTs in my teaching’ with x¯ = 3.87 and SD = 1.117.

With a mean score of 3.64 and standard deviation of 1.331, the respondents indicated that ‘my institution should make more ICT resources (such as computers, projectors, internet connectivity, LMS, e-resources, etc.) available for use in the department/faculty’. This was followed by the statement ‘my institution has people in ICT section who are available to provide assistance with difficulty on the use of ICTs’ with x¯ = 3.54 and SD = 1.217.

The F-test allows for evaluation of two competing regression models in their ability to explicate the variance in the dependent variable. Therefore, to determine if the association between the independent variables (PE, EE, SI and FC) and the dependent variable (ICT use in teaching) is statistically significant, the p value was taken into consideration. Table 2 shows that for academics at the UI with F (4, 126) = 3.776, p = 0.006 and at CU with F (4, 79) = 3.311, p = 0.015, regression model is significantly better at predicting the use of ICT in teaching at the UI and CU from PE, EE, SI and FC with p < 0.05.

Table 3 shows the results that only FCs (β = −0.345, t = −3.221, p = 0.002) have significant influence on the use of ICT in teaching at the UI, whereas EE, SI and PE are poor predictors of the use of ICT in teaching by academics at the UI. However, both EE (β = 0.380, t = 3.116, p = 0.003) and FCs (β = −0.281, t = −2.327, p = 0.023) have significant influence on the use of ICT by academics in CU. Findings also reveal that PE and SI are poor predictors of the use of ICT in teaching in CU.

To complement these findings, the deans, the directors of Centre for Information and Technology System (CITS) and the two library directors (university librarians) were asked to express their thoughts on factors they consider most imperative for success in ICT use in teaching. This elicited several responses as shown in Table 4.

Demographic variables (age, gender and academic qualification) have no effect on the determinants of ICT use in teaching amongst academics.

Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used for determining the relationship between the demographic variables (age, gender and academic qualification) and the determinants of ICT use. At the UI, the correlation between age and EE (r = 0.194, N = 131, p = 0.026) was significant. This implies a positive relationship between age and EE. A positive relationship also exists between age and FC (r = 0.232, N = 131, p = 0.008). Therefore, age had an effect on EE and FC amongst academics at the UI. However, the relationship was not significant between gender and all the determinants of ICT use, as well as academic qualification and all the determinants of ICT use (PE, EE, SI and FC) with p > 0.05 (see Table 5). Further findings show that age had a statistically significant correlation with SI amongst academics at CU (r = −0.236, N = 84, p = 0.031). This implies that out of all the demographic factors, age emerged as the only variable that had an effect on FC amongst academics at UI. Age also had an effect on SI amongst academics at CU (see Table 5).

The results of the study reveal that FC is a significant determinant of ICT use in teaching at the UI. Findings also show that both EE and FC are the major determinants of ICT use amongst academics in CU. The results from this study suggest that EE and FC are the variables that significantly influence academics’ use of ICTs in teaching. However, FC is the most important underlying factor for ICT use in teaching amongst academics in a public university, whereas EE and FC are requisite for ICT use amongst academics in private university. Similar to this finding, Kocaleva et al. (2015) found that FC and EE have a stronger influence on technology use. Facilitating condition is the degree to which an individual believes that organisational and technical infrastructure exist to support the use of technology (Venkatesh et al. 2003). Going by the submission of Alshmrany and Wilkinson (2017), FC is a supportive environment, which reduces any difficulty in technology adoption and use. In institutions of learning, FCs are availability of technical assistance, infrastructure, hardware and software (Bingimlas 2009) in any organisation. Facilitating condition, according to Yoo, Han and Huang (2012), usually serves as a source of motivation in technology adoption and use. In this study, another important finding is that age had an effect on EE and FC amongst academics at UI. This implies that academics who are older put more emphasis on FCs than those who are younger.

It was found that academics from CU perceived EE, aside from FC to be a fundamental determinant of ICT use. The results further confirmed that EE, a construct analogous to ease of use in TAM, has a strong influence on ICT use. This result is not unexpected, as previous studies (Venkatesh et al. 2003) pointed out that EE is a subset of FC. The strength of this construct in predicting technology use in other contextual settings such as e-government, e-commerce and healthcare has been demonstrated in various empirical studies (Ozkan & Kanat 2011; Yang 2010). As EE had influence on ICT use in teaching, Haslaman, Mumcu & Usluel (2008) pointed out the need for an internal helpdesk, whose job will be provision of support services to academics on the use of ICT in teaching. The strength of the UTAUT constructs in predicting technology acceptance and use is further supported by the result of this study.

Interviews with the deans, the directors of CITS and the two library directors (university librarians) revealed that management at both private and public universities are aware of the major factors influencing the use of ICT in teaching and learning. One of the deans of faculty totally opines that:

Overall, the qualitative aspect of this study showed that institutional policy, technological infrastructure, simplicity of use, fund and organisational support were requisites for ICT use. Related studies (Al-Mobaideen 2009) found similar factors in Jordanian universities, indicating that the concerns raised by respondents in Nigerian universities about critical success factors for ICT use in teaching are largely similar to those of scholars from other parts of the world.

Findings showed that PE had no significant influence on the use of ICT in teaching amongst academics in both public and private universities. The descriptive analysis showed that out of all of the individual items used in measuring the construct academics from both UI and CU, the statement ‘I find ICTs useful in teaching’ emerged with the highest mean score and the least deviation from the mean. This finding implies that academics are not disputing the usefulness of ICT in teaching. In the context of this study, academics in both private and public universities do not attach much importance to PE as a decisive factor in ICT use.

Social influence is defined by Venkatesh et al. (2003:451) as: ‘the degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe he or she should use the new system’. The findings of this study showed that SI had no significant influence on the ICT use in teaching. The result is divergent from previous research, which found SI to have a significant relationship with behavioural intention to use technology (Moussaïd et al. 2013). Further findings revealed that age had a significant correlation with SI amongst academics in a private university (CU). This finding suggests that the older academics are more likely to believe that their image and reputation will improve with the use of ICT in teaching (Rogers 2003).

The implications of these findings is that stakeholders in higher institutions should be more involved in helping academics to develop a greater sense of ICT use in teaching through provision of a supportive environment, most especially provision of infrastructure, hardware, software, technical assistance and regular training. The study makes significant contribution to IS theory by revealing the analytical power of the UTAUT in determining the underlying success factors for ICT use in an educational setting.

The limitation of this study lies in its inability to include academics from higher institutions in other geopolitical zones in Nigeria, and as such, the results cannot be applied to settings other than areas where the study was conducted, except when replicated over time. Future studies should include other academics from other disciplinary backgrounds and from universities other than those used in this study.