Assessment of technical and vocational trainers’ competence to adopt E-learning technologies into TVET curriculum implementation in higher education institutions

This study examined the level of expertise of Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) educators to use e-learning technologies for the delivery of TVET curriculum at higher levels of education. Gender influence on the TVET educators’ competencies to use the technologies for their educational duties was also examined. The descriptive survey research design was adopted. Two research questions and one hypothesis were posed to guide the study. A total of Ninety Three (93) TVET educators made up of 67(72%) male and 26 (28%) female drawn from the authors of articles and participants in panels at all the proceedings and workshops of the International Conferences on e-learning technologies for innovative education organized by the: Online Learning consortium (OLC); Association for Talent Development (ATD) and Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) between the periods of 2010 to 2019 were screened and used through convenience random and purposive sampling methods. The data collected through questionnaire were analyzed and tested using frequency count, percentage, mean, standard deviation and T-test. The instrument had face validity and reliability co-efficient of 0.81 obtained using Cronbach Alpha formulas. The findings revealed that TVET educators were highly competent users to the use of most of the studied e-learning technologies (such as: Use of Projectors and power point presentation; Using Online networking sites..; Utilizing Learning Objects; Creating/delivering web-based instruction; etc) with average mean score greater than 3.5.However, the study reported a low level of expertise by the TVET educators in the use of smart (electronic) Board to deliver instruction (31.2%) with average Mean score of 1.96.In addition to this, the study revealed a significant difference between the level of expertise/competence of male and female TVET educators on the use of e-learning technologies (t-calculated (12.702) > t-tabulated (1.960) at 0.05 level of significant).Conclusively, the study recommended that more customized e-learning technologies for the teaching and learning of TVET courses should be made available in the higher education and TVET educators be professionally trained on how to use them for their core business of teaching.