Digital Competences Required By Business Education Graduates in Imo State for Optimal Performance in the Digital Office Era

Abstract

The study focused on digital office skills required by business education graduates in Imo State for effective performance in modern office. Two research questions guided the study. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised of 65 business educators from the three tertiary institutions in Imo State that offer business education courses. There was no sampling because of the management size of the population. A structured questionnaire titled digital office skills required by business education graduates for modern office (DOSRBEGMO) was used to collect data for the study. The instrument was validated by two experts from business education department, Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education, Owerri. The instrument was tested for internal consistency using Cronbach Alpha that yielded reliability coefficient of 0.76. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, while t-test was used to test the research hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the study revealed that digital competencies are highly required. For optimal performance in digital office era. Digital hard competences of use of computer, internet, other office equipment’s and communication skills among others, and digital soft competencies of team work, time management, problem solving are important. The result of hypotheses revealed there is no significant different in mean scores of male and female business educators. From the findings, the study recommends among others that modern equipment’s should be provided at every business education department by the tertiary institutions.