SUPERVISORS’ RATING OF COMPUTER COMPETENCIES POSSESSED BY SECRETARIES FOR EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE OF ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The need to ensure effective performance by secretaries in the technology driven era
necessitated this study on supervisors’ rating of computer competencies possessed by
secretaries for effective performance in the public service of Anambra State. Three
research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested. Descriptive
survey design was adopted. A population of 107 supervisors was studied without
sampling because the population was manageable. A structured questionnaire with 25
items in three clusters was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by
three experts and has reliability coefficients of 0.92, 0.92 and 0.93, for the three
clusters respectively. The arithmetic mean and standard deviation were used to
answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05
level of significance. Findings indicated that computer competencies possessed by the
secretaries in the three areas were rated low. Gender had a significant effect on the
respondents’ rating on hardware manipulative competencies and word processing
competencies but did not significantly affect respondents’ rating on spreadsheet
competencies possessed by the secretaries. It was concluded that secretaries in
Anambra State public service poorly possess computer competencies for effective
performance. Based on the findings and conclusion of the study, it was recommended
among others that secretaries in Anambra State public service should enroll in
computer training programmes to acquire relevant competencies for effective
performance in the public service.