University Students` Perception and Utilization of Technology for Learning: The Case of Haramaya University

As technology has become more prevalent and accessible to students in their personal lives, learning experiences and interaction, it encouraged students to engage and generate innovative and creative ideas and sharing learning experiences. This paper examines university students` perceptions and utilization of technology for learning at Haramaya University in Ethiopia (as a case). The researcher used survey research design and questionnaire (students=298) as principal data collection instrument. The participant sampled using purposive, heterogeneity and systematic random sampling techniques. The collected data were analysed by descriptive (mean, percentage and frequency) and inferential statistics (t-test). Students` perception in relation to gender and their locality (rural and urban), and utilization of technology addressed by this study. The finding of the study revealed that there is no statistically significant mean difference between male and female students’ perceptions towards technology utilization for learning (t (296) = t -.102, p>0.05, p=0.919). This was the same for students who came from rural and urban areas (t (296) = t= -.126, p>0.05, p=0.900) and students have positive perception towards technology assisted learning. The paper revealed that students have been using technology for educational purpose and face challenges.

other types of information since it is the largest library and laboratory and it becomes a popular tool for instruction. Furthermore, the students' use of technology in school and university today's will change the future employees' effectiveness and efficiency in using the different types of technology on jobs in the competitive world of work. Despite the essential role of technology in simplifying the live of human being technology may have negative effects, e.g., Cyber cheating, technology based cheating, plagiarism and information overload that resulted in less learning (Austin & Brown, 1999, Rockwell & Singleton, 2007 as cited in Thomas L et al, 2009).
Research findings regarding students' perception may have significant implication for university managements, faculty members, teachers, students and employers to enhance the delivering of education to students in higher learning institution and students` application of the experienced knowledge and skills in the real world of work. However, very small research has addressed students' perception and reaction to multimedia education, models and methodologies for the study of technology-assisted learning (Webster & Hackley, 1997;Connel, 2006;Schmid, 2008, as cited in Thomas L et al, 2009). Therefore, the intention of this paper is to investigate university students' perception and utilization of ICT for learning purposes.

Statement of the Problem
The attitude and perception of teachers and students' towards educational technology may affect its implementation and utilization for teaching and learning processes and purposes.
Researchers have shown that students` perceptions and their readiness to accept computer technology in teaching are critical to the success of their learning (Buabeng, A & Yidana, I, 2015). According to Dorup (2004), students' preferred the use of ICT in learning and they showed positive attitudes towards the technology. However, the nature of classroom organization, classmates, teachers, availability of resources, could influence these positive attitudes (Kennewell, 2001). Several studies on students' attitudes towards ICT and their relationship with gender have revealed conflicting results. Kubiatko and Halakova (2009) conducted a study on high school students` perception of using ICT in studying Biology. The result revealed that male students have more positive perception towards the use of ICT than female students do. Furthermore, the study of Papaioannous and Charalambous (2011) as cited in Buabeng, A &Yidana, I, (2015) found out that male students had more positive Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 8 -Issue: 1 January -2018 attitudes towards ICT than their female counter part. Seyal, Rahim and Rahman (2002) study on computer attitudes of 268 students in contrary revealed that no significant differences in attitudes with regards to gender. In addition, Mizrachi and Shoham (2004)  In order to measure these objectives, the following hypotheses were formulated to be tested.

Hypotheses
1. "H O1" : There is no statistically significance mean difference between Male and Female students' perception towards utilization of technology for learning.

"H O2" :
There is no statistically significance mean difference between students' perception towards utilization of technology for learning based on their locality (Rural &Urban) replaces the lecturer/tutor. On the other hand, in a supportive role it does not substitute the lecturer/tutor rather it gives an opportunity for practice, for self-assessment, and to reinforce the points made by the lecturer/tutor. The need to incorporate technology in to curriculum has been recognised for many years in different parts of the world. According to Miranda and Russell (2011), "Since the early 1990s, schools, districts, and the federal government have invested heavily in instructional technology (IT). Teacher and student access to technology in school has improved dramatically.
According to UNESCO (2004), there are three main approaches to use ICT by teachers. The first one is an integrated approach meaning (planning the use of ICT within the subject to enhance particular concepts and skills and improve students' attainments). The second is an enhancement approaches (planning the use of ICT resources that will enhance the existing topics through some aspect of the lessons and tasks) and the third is a complementary approach (using ICT resources to empower the pupils` learning). All the three approaches can enhance attainment, but the effects may be different. In the integrated approach, students` learning enhanced because they are confronted with challenges to their existing knowledge and given deeper insights in to the subject being studied. The enhancement approach presents knowledge in new ways; encouraging learners too formulate their own explanations. The complementary approach frees the learner to focuses on more challenging subject-focused tasks.
It has been believed that ICT has very strong effect in education. There are many studies that are recognised the role of technology in facilitating the interaction between students-students, students-materials, students-teachers, accessing both personal and educational information.
ICT can have a useful effect on teaching and learning if it`s utilized properly under the right condition including proper training, resources, support and perception. It also offers the potential to met the learning needs of individual students, to promote equal opportunities', to offers learning materials, and promote positive interdependence of learning among learners (Cavas, 2009). The impact of ICT on the learning process seems to be more important and requires more that looking only to the curricula. Improved students outcomes are observed with regard to motivation, enjoying learning, self-esteem, ICT skills, collaborative skills, subject knowledge, information handling skills, meta-cognitive skills, etc. (Yousaf, 2008 as cited in Azhar et al, 2011).
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 8 -Issue: 1 January -2018

Existing ICT status in Ethiopian
The world has witnessed an unprecedented increase in access to information and communication technologies (ICT). Nowadays ICT is increasingly used as a key enabler and transformational tool to foster economic growth, accelerate knowledge transfer, develop local capacities, and raised productivity in a variety of sectors, in both developed and developing countries. The government of Ethiopia has embarked on an ICT enabled transformation journey, aiming to enhance their efficiency across sectors (Marc & Mariana, 2014). Ethiopian is among the poorest with the quality of telecom infrastructure and service in Africa (Marc & Mariana, 2014), to change the situation the government of Ethiopia has taken decisive steps towards advancing the country from a low mobile, Internet, and broadband penetration rates to a highly connected society. By signing a two-year management contract (2010-2012) with France Telecom, the state-owned Ethiopian Telecom Company (ETC) took further step towards changing course and transforming the telecom landscape in Ethiopia. Within this period the operators serves 20 million customers as of December 2012, with 50% growth.
Moreover, Ethiopia Telecom has recently introduced a range of service to extended national and international service. The public operator is rehabilitated its optical fiber network (more than 10,000 km) and other service. These have been achieved in partnership with the Chinese manufacturing ZTE who signed a US $1.5 billion contract in 2010 to provide telecom equipment to Ethiopia (Marc & Mariana, 2014).
In Ethiopia, huge investment has been made to acquire the latest technology and expand the service in the telecom sector. As a result, accessibility and quality of telecommunication

Research Design and Methods
This study utilized a survey research design. A survey is an attempt to collect data from members of a population with respect to one or more variables (Gay, 2003). The goal of a survey is to gain specific information about a representative sample of a particular group, a self report measure is a strong method to provide great insight on an individual`s perception.
The researcher used gender and locality as independent variables, and perception of students as dependent variable. The sample for this study was derived from undergraduate students (graduating class of 2016/17) enrolled at Haramaya University (one of the oldest university in the country) some selected colleges. Both primary source of data (questionnaire and interview) and secondary source of data (document review) used to collect valuable information for the study.

Infrastructure and Service
Role and responsibility of the departement Create and manage the physical layer connectivity of new and existing campuses building, classrooms, offices and laboratories, IP layer, plan and manage internet connectivity, secure the network from internal and external threats, monitor connections, log and audit network access, create and manage application-ready cloud infrastructure, update and patch the operating system and middleware in data center, plan, implement and manage internal communication and collaboration platforms(e-mail, portal, unified communication, etc), plan, implement and manage online and offline backup, plan, implement and manage central identity management solution, etc.

Teaching and Learning Technologies
Role and responsibility of the departement Plan, implement and manage E-learning infrastructure, work with academic departments for course material preparation and uploading, plan and manage digital library infrastructure, create the technical infrastructure with in campus, inter-campuses and inter-university for video conferencing and tele-education.

Support and Mentainance
Role and responsibility of the departement Provide quick services to its users, problem identification, support and resolution function to its customers, record and monitor problem being reported to ICT, update users on status of problems, and report on service level metrics for service provided, compile a Knowledge base of problems and solutions, for user by first level support personnel, maintain failed office equipment ( printer, ups, computer, laptops, phones, network devices), perform preventive maintenance regularly, keep an inventory of maintained and replaced items.

Training and Consultencey
Role and responsibility of the departement Plan inter-ICT team knowledge and exchange sharing, arrange training for campus users and staff about newly implemented and developed application, create basic awareness on internet, security, productivity tools, emerging technologies and new projects in ICT for the campus users and staff.

Bussines Application Administration and Development
Role and responsibility of the departement Analyzing business processes, automate, facilitate the students-instructor communication, automate and facilitate the full life-cycle activities of students and staff (from enrolment to graduation/registration/retirement), verify the compatibility, scalability and integrity the different business automation application, developing or customizing application.
The total population of graduating class students was 1357 of which the researcher selected 310 students using Slovin Formula (n=N/1+N (e 2 ) from four colleges. Systematic, purposive and heterogeneity-sampling techniques employed and equal representations were secured to select sample students across the colleges. The quantitative data substantiated by open-ended question items, interview data and document review related with ICT in Ethiopia. The number of items on the questionnaire were 52 and the reliability of the items were tested and the value of the reliability was α=0.832 which is strongly acceptable. The Likert-type scale from 1-5 (5= "strongly agree", 4= "agree", 3= "undecided", 2= "disagree" and 1= "strongly disagree") was used to check students perception towards technology utilization for learning. Their level of practice measured on a scale of 1-5 score (5= "frequently", 4= "always", 3= "sometime", 2= "rarely" and 1= "not at all/never").The data was coded and prepared using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 16) for analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to calculate and report the result. Frequency, mean, standard deviation and independent sample t-test used to analyze the data.

Data Presentation, Analysis and Interpretation
This part of the piece of writing deals with the presentation, analysis and interpretation of the data gathered through survey questionnaire, interview and document review followed by discussion of the findings. Furthermore, the main findings of the study presented with the help of descriptive and inferential statistics. The researcher was distributed 310 questionnaires for sample respondents among them 298 (96.12%) were filled the questionnaire and returned successfully. Therefore, the analysis depends on the information provided by these respondents.

NB: CEBS=College of Education and Behavioral Science, CNCS= College of Natural and Computational Sciences, CBE=College of Business and Economics, and CSS=College of Social Sciences and Humanities
As it can be seen in the above Fig1  Nearly half of respondents were use Google Plus and have E-mail address. Furthermore, students use "Viber", "Messenger", "Whatups" and "imo" to exchange message and personal information. Students' social media usage is growing in Africa. As it can be seen in the fig. 3, majority 259 (86.9%) of respondents believe that technology can assist their learning. This may helps the university management and faculty members to facilitate the integration and utilization of information communication technology in teaching learning processes. It also helps the process of transformation of creating highly connected society. Nevertheless, no more than 110 (36.9%) of students get support and training from the university the remaining 188 (63.1%) of respondents did not get technology based training organized by the university for students. Therefore, the university management need to take the initiatives, colleges in collaboration with ICT directorate should organize training for both students and lecturers to enhance the integration and utilization of technology for learning.

Fig. 4. Issues related with frequency of Internet usage and support
As the data obtained from respondents portray, majority 146 ( Note: the mean score ranged from 1-1.5= strongly disagree, 1.51-2.5=Disagree, 2.51-3.5= undecided, 3.51-4.5=Agree and >4.51= strongly agree. As it can be seen in table 1, the mean score of the respondents to almost all the items is greater than 4.0, which indicates that mean score of students perception on utilization of technology for learning it is higher than the average (3.00). This means that students' perception towards technology utilization is positive. They perceived that technology could help them to increase their knowledge, learning successes, technical skills, academic achievements, social interaction, deeper understanding and make learning easy and simple.
However, it doesn`t` tell as whether the mean score are significant or not. Therefore, to check the statistical significance, independent sample t-test was computed and the result is shown in   in relation to gender. In addition, Mizrachi and Shoham (2004) studied students` computer attitudes in schools and found that there is no significant difference in attitudes concerning gender. However, more computer use leads to more positive computer attitudes.
Similarly, as can be seen from table 2 above there is no statistically significance mean difference between students' perception towards technology utilization for learning based on their locality (Rural &Urban) t (296)= t= -.126, p>0.05, p=0.900. This is may be the result of increased access to technology in Ethiopia. According to the government of Ethiopia the share of rural "Kebeles" with access to telecom service (with in 5km radius) increased from 62.1% in 2009/10 to 97% by 2014/15 in (GTP-I-). Furthermore, in Ethiopia students start ICT education at the same grade level (grade 9 th ) in government schools both in rural and urban area. Despite, Mobile penetration remains significantly below the regional average of sub-Saharan Africa of 53% (Marc & Mariana, 2014). They always use internet to do assignments and learning projects, (the mean score of male and female respondents on the issue was 3.68 and 3.84 respectively). Students of higher learning institution always use facebook for informational purposes. They use online journals and digital storage to access learning materials and books. They use mobile application for learning purposes. From the above Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 8 -Issue: 1 January -2018 mean difference we can understand that female students are better in using technology for learning than their male counterpart. The grand mean of all the above items is 3.388 meaning students sometimes utilized technology for learning purposes.
Most of respondents disclosed that, high coast of technological materials/devices; slow internet connection, lack of training, high cost internet service and lack of technical skills are the major challenges in utilization of technology in higher learning institutions. Furthermore, students as the challenges of technology utilization listed lack of organized laboratories, lack of support from top management, low experiences and inconsistent electric power supply.
Likewise, Marc & Mariana, (2014) in their studies stated that high telecommunication cost continue to hinder the country's competiveness for the sector. They also declared that poor qualities of infrastructure, weak institutional and regulatory framework, and low coverage of

Conclusion and Recommendation
Some scholars in the field of educational and instructional technology promote the application of information communication technology, online learning environment, social media, internet technologies, and digitalized learning. However, there is a shortage of empirical research concerning students' perceptions regarding the use or utilization of technologies and technologies ability to promote learning. Therefore, this paper will contribute to the literature in the field.
The main conclusion of this study is that majority of university students` believe that technology can assist their learning, and demonstrated positive perception towards technology utilization for learning. Based on the major finding we can conclude that there is no statistically significant mean deference between students` on their perception towards utilization of technology for learning against their gender and locality (rural &urban).
Furthermore, they feel that technology can help them to increase their knowledge, address different students learning style, maximize students' technical skills and academic achievements, deeper understanding, makes learning easy and simple. Students` use their mobile internet to access personal and educational information, doing assignments and learning new contents.
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 8 -Issue: 1 January -2018 However, specific factors have been identified as the challenges that affect utilization of technology for learning and teaching such as poor and slow internet connection, high price of internet service and technology materials, lack of awareness and support from faculty members and top management, lack of well-equipped ICT laboratory and inconsistent power supply. Optimistically, the result of this study may be seen just as the beginning of a transition processes to technology assisted teaching and learning in higher education. From the aforementioned findings, the researcher suggested that: 1) The university managements need to pay more attention to the use of ICT for teaching and learning in the university. They should maintain the growing ICT usage among students through continuous short and long-term ICT skill training and promotion of the benefits of ICT in education.
2) Higher learning institution management needs to make basic investments to advance access and utilization of technology with clear vision and strategies.
3) A lot needs to be done in order to create university net locally and join the rest of developed and modern universities in the world in the area of ICT to improve teaching learning and accessing educational information.
4) The government needs to allocate appropriate and independent budget for ICT infrastructural development for Higher learning institution and monitor the implementation.
5) The government of Ethiopia should improve infrastructural facilities like electricity, ICT materials, capacity of internet connection and services needs to be accessible at a very affordable price.

Limitation of the Study
The good news is that the result of this study provides insight for university top administration and faculty remembers about students' perception and utilization of technology, major challenges faced by students' and practice. However, the researcher was collected data from a small sample of students enrolls in undergraduate regular program at Haramaya University. The sample may not represent the whole population of Haramaya University students. Therefore, further researchers may want to validate this finding using students` of different universities in the country. The researcher measure only students perception and utilization of technology for learning, using self-report questionnaire as Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 8 -Issue: 1 January -2018 primary data collection instrument and do not examine the perception of teacher in comparative manner against students. Therefore, researcher suggested that, effectiveness of ICT integration for learning, distance education and technology oriented curriculum development and evaluation may be the area of research in the future.