Factors Influencing Lecturer;s Participation in Distance Education: The Case of University of Nairobi

Abstract

The adopt ion rate of distance education inst ructional delivery modes among University of Nairobi lecturers is low and this has hampered the spread of distance education to all disciplines in the university. T his research sought to analyze the factors that influence lecturers’ readiness to adopt dist ance education instructional delivery modes . Several studies conducted in both developed and developing countries generally concur on the nature of the factors that deter lecturers from adopting ICT in delivering instruction in distance education (DE). The se include: increased time commitment and workload for academic staff; lack of extrinsic incentives or rewards; lack of te chnical and pedagogical support and philosophical, epistemological and social objection. This study examined the factors that are crit ical in influencing the University of Nairobi lecturers’ attitudes towards DE and their readiness to adopt distance education . A structured questionnaire designed to elicit information on the factors that may influence their readiness to adopt distance e ducation was administered to a stratified sample of lecturers in all the six colleges of the University. Factor analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were the main statistical tools used. The results indicate that the factors that influence lecturers p articipation in distance education in other institutions in the world are basically the same and also important to University of Nairobi lecturers.