Technology use among Ghanaian Senior High School students’ in learning mathematics and the factors that influence it

Abstract

The study sought to investigate technology use among Ghanaian senior high school students’ and to also uncover the factors influencing their technology use. Cross-Sectional survey design with mixed quantitative and qualitative data was gathered for the study. The population of the study comprised of all senior high school students’ in Ashanti region. A stratified sampling technique was used to select 200 students from both rural and urban districts in Ashanti region. The findings revealed that the extent to which SHS students’ use of technology in learning mathematics was very low. The Independent samples t-test revealed that students’ in the urban areas use more technology (Mean = 2.19, SD = 0.48) than students’ in the rural areas (Mean = 1.94, SD =0.54), students’ in a school with high technology resources available use more technology (Mean = 2.30, SD = 0.48) than students’ in a school with low technology resources available (Mean = 1.88, SD = 0.50) and students’ above the age of 20 years use more technology (Mean = 2.61, SD = 0.59) than students’ within the age of 18 – 20 years (Mean = 2.03, SD = 0.56) and students’ within the age of 15 – 17 years (Mean = 2.08, SD = 0.44). The analysis revealed that the differences in the mean technology use between students’ in the rural and urban areas, students’ in schools with high technology resources available and students’ in schools with low technology resources available and students’ above 20 years and students below 20 years were statistically significance (F = 12.22, p = 0.001), (F = 35.91, p = 0.00), and (F = 4.96, p = 0.01) respectively.