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      Gender, Age and Staff Preparedness to Adopt Internet Tools for Research Sharing During Covid-19 in African Varsities

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            Abstract

            This study assessed the partial as well as the collaborative impact of age and gender on academic staff preparedness to adopt Internet tools for research sharing in African universities during Covid-19. Although evidence abounds in the literature on gender and age as they affect relatively, scholars’ utilisation of digital tools for research communication, such studies did not examine scholars’ preparedness to adopt from a broad perspective of Africa. This study was conducted based on the argument that the preparedness of scholars may affect their future interest to utilize digital tools for research sharing. A quantitative method, based on the descriptive survey research design, was adopted to provide answers to four prevailing research questions. The examination focused on a populace of 8,591 staff in African universities, nonetheless, information was gathered from 1,977 of them, who deliberately took part from 24 African nations. A validated electronic rating scale, which was mailed/posted to targeted participants, was used as the instrument for data collection. Gender and age significantly affected academic staff preparedness to adopt Internet tools for research sharing partially and interactively in African Universities during Covid-19. Female staff were more prepared than males to adopt internet tools for research sharing during the pandemic. Older lecturers reported a higher rate of preparedness than their younger colleagues to adopt Internet tools for research sharing during Covid-19. In light of these proofs, ramifications and proposals for future exploration are discussed.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            AfricArXiv Preprints
            ScienceOpen
            23 June 2021
            Affiliations
            [1 ] Department of Educational Management, University of Calabar, PMB 115, Etta Agbor Street, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria
            [2 ] Department of Library and Information Science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow-226025, India
            [3 ] Department of Educational Technology, University of Calabar, PMB 115, Etta Agbor Street, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria
            Author notes
            Author information
            https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5715-3428
            https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7820-3041
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6780-4113
            Article
            10.14293/111.000/000020.v1
            f193cedd-3daa-4b55-bdc7-faf4a96b3061

            This work has been published open access under Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Conditions, terms of use and publishing policy can be found at www.scienceopen.com .

            History
            : 23 June 2021

            The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the repository: https://doi.org/10.17632/69k939yr4n.2
            Assessment, Evaluation & Research methods,Educational research & Statistics,Information & Library science,Vocational technology
            Africa,Age,Covid-19,Gender,Internet tools,Research sharing

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