The purpose of this study is to determine how faculty members in Nigerian universities perceive a distance education (DE) innovation (the National Open University of Nigeria), and how those perceptions relate to attitudes toward the innovation. The specific objectives of the study are: (1) To determine the attitudes of faculty members and administrators in conventional Nigerian universities toward the proposed National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN); (2) To determine the perceived attributes of NOUN and their acceptability by faculty members and administrators in conventional Nigerian universities; (3) To determine relationships, if any, among a range of change-related variables in the NOUN context; (4) To determine consistency with previous research findings which indicate that innovativeness is indicative of positive attitudes toward change; (5) To identify the characteristics of potential laggards and innovators in the NOUN innovation context.
The dependent variable in the study is attitude toward the innovation.
Using a causal-comparative research design, data were collected via a questionnaire supplemented by interview, from a random sample of faculty members and administrators drawn from the university of Jos (n = 129). The specific research questions for which answers were sought were as follows: (1) What is the nature and extent of attitudes held by traditional university faculty and administrators in Nigeria toward a distance education innovation? (2) In what way are these attitudes related to the selected change-related variables? (3) In what ways are the characteristics of faculty members and administrators who are strongly receptive to the idea of NOUN (and the related methods and procedures) different from those who are strongly opposed to it?
The major findings are as follows: (1) There was no significant difference in the dependent variable (attitude toward NOUN) across the contextual variables except for familiarity with distance education concepts. (2) "Conventional system adequacy" and lack of distance education related skills were the two major reasons for unwillingness to participate in the innovation. (3) Ten variables were significantly correlated to attitude toward the innovation. With the exception of tenure status, all of the correlations were in the anticipated direction. (4) Finally, when a discriminant analysis was performed on the data, it was found that 70 percent of the respondents were correctly classified in the receptive, neutral, and opposed attitude groups. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)
