Assistive Technology for Students-with-Disabilities Entrepreneurial Development during the Covid-19 Era in South-South, Nigeria

Abstract

PCF10 Sub-theme: Inspiring Innovations // The study investigated assistive technology for students-with-disabilities entrepreneurial development during the Covid-19 era in South-South, Nigeria. The need for the entrepreneurial development of students-with-disability is essential as a result of the harsh effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Three research questions and three hypotheses were answered and tested in the study. Descriptive survey design was adopted in the study. Population of the study comprised all the special schools in South-South, Nigeria while purposive as well as random sampling technique was used to draw two public and private special schools as sample for the study and 246 special students were drawn as respondents for the study in two states (Rivers and Delta) in South-South, Nigeria. One public and one private school was selected in each state. Instrument adopted for data collection was a 15-item questionnaire tagged “Assistive Technology Adoption for Entrepreneurial Development of Special Needs Students Questionnaire” (ATAEDSNSQ). The instrument was face and content validated by two experts (one in Measurement and Evaluation and the other in Special Education). Reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach alpha reliability with an index of 0.79. The research questions were analyzed using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using z-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study showed that the schools did not differ significantly in the available emerging assistive technologies, its adoption and the challenges to the adoption of these emerging technologies for students-with-disabilities entrepreneurial development during the COVID-19 era in South-South, Nigeria. It was recommended among other needs that a technology policy should be enacted to guide the operations of these schools. // Paper ID 4470