Abstract
This study examined teachers’ awareness and attitude toward students’ cybercrime practices in secondary schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis in Rivers State. Four objectives, four research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted of 1877 public senior secondary school teachers in Port Harcourt Metropolis, with 1314 teachers in Obio-Akpor L.G.A and 563 teachers in Port Harcourt City L.G.A. The sample size was 330 teachers, using Taro Yamane formula to determine the sample. Multi-stage procedure was adopted, while proportionate sampling technique was used to determine the number of teachers from each of the selected public school in Rivers State for the study. Self-structured instrument titled "Teachers’ Awareness and Attitude toward Students’ Cybercrime Practices” (TAASCP) was used for data collection. The instrument was validated two experts: one in Measurement and Evaluation and one in Guidance and Counselling, all in Faculty of Education, Rivers State University. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha for a measure of internal consistency, which yielded reliability coefficient of 0.84 for TAASCP, while the sub-scales yielded reliability coefficient of 0.85 for Teachers’ Awareness and 0.83 for Teacher’ Attitude towards Students Cybercrime Practices.Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer research questions while independent sample t-test was used for test of the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that teachers demonstrated high level of awareness towards students’ cybercrime practices in secondary schools and exhibited a positive attitude toward addressing students’ cybercrime practices in secondary schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis. The findings also indicated that both male and female teachers, , possess comparable levels of awareness and maintain similar attitudes toward students’ cybercrime practices. The study recommended amongst others that schools should implement regular monitoring and evaluation systems to assess teachers’ effectiveness in addressing cybercrime practices and to identify areas for improvement in awareness and attitude initiatives. Teachers, in collaboration with school management, should lead awareness campaigns to educate students about the consequences of cybercrime on their academic, moral and social development.