Technology Adoption Readiness in Disadvantaged Universities during COVID-19 Pandemic in South Africa

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected hundreds of million lives and taken over four million lives to date. As a result, governments and policymakers see the need for emergency action to reduce the spread of the virus. In an attempt to contain the virus, governments and policymakers worldwide introduced a different range of protection measures and interventions to change their citizen's behaviours, primarily through social distancing, interprovince lockdown, stay at home strategies, and quarantines. The different lockdown measures have created unique and challenging conditions with no documented equivalent in the education sector. A significant effect was that many Higher Education institutions worldwide were not ready to switch to online teaching and learning when the governments announced the sudden lockdown. This study discusses the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on South Africa Higher Education Institutions, focusing on the historically disadvantaged universities. The study went further to evaluate the readiness of lecturers from selected disadvantaged universities to adopting online teaching and learning by applying the Technology Readiness-Acceptance Model (TRAM). Quantitative data was collected through an online questionnaire. Results show that the higher the average of optimism and innovativeness among the respondents' point towards the readiness of adopting technology. On the other hand, higher the average insecurity and discomfort show the uneasiness of adopting technologies by the respondents.