Limitations of the research 102 !

with American schools, but none of these were fully realised. At the time of the evaluation study in December 2000, the WorLD programme was being implemented in 20 schools, all with varying levels of connectivity and equipment. Ten other schools were also being considered for inclusion.

SchoolNet Uganda is piloting very small aperture terminals (VSATs) in ten rural areas. It also organises training programmes and workshops for the professional development of teachers in the use of computers. The training is organised in phases, where at least two teachers and the head teacher from each of the participating schools are encouraged to participate. According to the National Coordinator, approximately 120 teachers and administrators had gone through the first two phases of this training at the time of this study.

(Gordon, 2002). However, researching and measuring the impact of ICT integration in schools has been found to be problematic (Cuttance, 2001). In Queensland, an instrument for measuring student use of ICT in the curriculum was developed, trialled and evaluated (Jamieson-Proctor, Watson, Finger, Grimbeek, & Burnett, 2007). This instrument has shown to be useful in measuring ICT use by students in Queensland State schools (Jamieson-Proctor & Finger, 2006; Jamieson-Proctor, Burnett, Finger & Watson, 2006).

In computer use and students academic achievement, Gil-Flores (2007) finds out the relationship between computer use and academic performance, measuring the students‘

proficiency in Mathematics and linguistic communication skills, the results show a much higher use of computer at home than at school. Using multiple regression analysis, a significant relationship between computer use at home and academic achievement was found, even taking into consideration the effect of socio-economic and cultural background. On the other hand no significant relationship is known between the use of the computer at school and academic achievement. Other researchers Maliki & Uche (2007) investigate students‘ background variables and utilisation of library resources among secondary schools in Cross River State, Nigeria. The study determines the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. The students‘ background variables significantly related thereby predicting their utilisation of the ICT resources. Expectedly, it is important to note that home as well as the school is bound to influence effective utilisation of the library resources consequently reflecting on their performances as well as achievement. This is because the type of home and school a student lives and attends tend to influence his/her awareness of the potentiality in the use of ICT. However, the use of computer and their external values in the present time made the researcher to infer that if the ICT aspect of computer curriculum is well articulated and taught, access to and quality of such facilities as well as its utilisation could predict learning outcomes.

Bajulaiye (2001) investigates provision and utilisation of materials relative to students‘

achievement. The results show there was significant difference between the performance of students in schools that had resource materials and utilised than the students that resource materials but did not utilise them. The students with learning materials but did not utilise them did not perform better than the students in the schools that did not have the resource materials to utilise. The implication of this to the researcher is that making the SchoolNet facilities available without utilising them may affect the learning outcomes in ICT. This may serve as challenge to computer education in schools.

Waxman, Lin and Michko (2003) estimate the effect of teaching and learning with

technology on students‘ cognitive, affective and behavioural outcome of learning. 282 effect sizes were calculated using statistical data from 42 studies that combines 7000 students. Their results show that 0.410 (p<0.00) with 95 percent confidence interval of 0.175 to 0.644. that teaching and learning with technology has small positive, significant (p<0.001) effect on students‘ outcome when compared to traditional instruction. The mean weighted effect size for 29 studies containing cognitive outcomes was 0.448; and the mean study weighted effect size for the 10 comparison that focused on students‘

affective outcome was 0.464. On the other hand, the mean study weighted effect size for the 3 studies that contained behavioural outcome was -0.091, indicating that technology have a small negative effect on students‘ behavioural outcomes. The general study of Waxman, et al (2003) weighted effect were due to constant across the categories of study characteristics, quality of study indicators, technology characteristics and instructional teaching characteristics.

Wighting (2006) used a mixed-method design to determine whether and how use of computers in the classroom affects sense of learning in a community among high school students (N = 181). The results indicate that using computers in the classroom positively affects students‘ sense of learning in a community. Analyses revealed that students‘

believed that connectedness with their peers is the most important variable in developing a sense of community. Results suggest the following policy implications for urban education: (a) use of computers in teaching may add to the sense of classroom community and (b) sense of community is important and may be linked to academic success. This study also suggests that irrespective of location, the SchoolNet facilities can have similar influence on students learning outcome.

In the study of Adisa (2004) who correlates some indicators of school quality with learning outcomes of JSS students in Lagos State and established relationships existing between school quality and learning outcomes. The study was not different from the earlier finding of (Farombi, 1998, Famade, 2000, Oloyede, 2004 & Newa, 2007) However, for the purpose of this study, the focus is on the schools context. As Passey (1999) argues, ―understanding school contexts is important, not only because they enable those undertaking evaluations to understand differences and to make reasonable comparisons, but also because they offer schools opportunities to do the same‖(p.325)

According to Passey (1999), the success and failure of schools implementing ICT projects could depend on a range of significant elements and factors such as:

 the approaches and stance of the principals‘ or senior management;

 the role and responsibilities of the ICT coordinator;

 the involvement and practices of the library resources management;

 the presence and contribution of an ICT policy;

 the extent of integration of curriculum and administration;

 support gained through staff development;

 consideration of teaching styles;

 concerns about ICT skills of pupils/students;

 provision of ICT technical support;

 allocation of funding;

 deployment of physical resources;

 focus for school community link;

 development of a sharing ethos;

 forms of monitoring and record-keeping; and

 uses made of evaluation and assessment.

Many of the contextual factors raised in this study are in agreement with those that Passey has identified as important for determining the success and failure of schools implementing SNNG‘s ICT projects.

Bovée, Voogt and Meelissen (2007) investigate computer attitudes of 240 students from eight primary and secondary schools in South Africa. The student population of six of the eight schools that participated in the study can be characterised as middle or upper class. Two schools were from South African townships. All eight schools used computers for educational purposes, although the availability and use of the computers differed. The research question of the study was whether differences in computer attitude could be found between boys and girls, and to what extent these differences could be explained by student, school, and environment characteristics. In contrast to most studies on gender differences and computer attitudes, no gender differences in computer attitudes were found. However, this study showed differences in computer attitudes between students from the upper/middle class schools and students from the township schools. The latter showed a less positive attitude towards computers, but more interest in computer-related careers compared with the students in the upper/middle class school