Electronic media and students’ reading competence in Nigeria

The study examined influence of electronic media resource on students’ reading competence at the senior secondary school level, with the aim of ascertaining their readiness for higher education, in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The study adopted an ex-post facto research design and used a sample size of 1,090 students. The researchers developed two sets of instruments called Electronic Media Resource Questionnaire (EMRQ) and Reading Competence Test (RCT) for the study. The research raised three hypotheses which was tested at 0.05 level of significance with 1,088 degree of freedom. The resulting data were analyzed using independent t-test statistics. The findings revealed that students who had access to television and radio programmes excelled significantly higher than those who lacked the exposure. It was also discovered that students who were more exposed to television programmes performed higher than those who were more exposed to radio programmes in their level of reading competencies. It was recommended among other things that more electronic instructional materials should be made available and literarily used in all classes at the secondary school level to enhance positive reading achievement for quality education at the higher level.