Competency Needs of Postgraduate Students of STEM Education in Research Writing in Nigerian Universities
- 1 Department of Science Education, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria
- 2 Department of Vocational Teacher Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
- 3 Department of Educational Foundations, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
Abstract
The study identified research competency needs of postgraduate students of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education in research writing in Nigerian Universities. The study adopted a survey research design and was carried out in South-Eastern Nigeria. Two research questions and a hypothesis guided the study. The population for the study was 372 comprising 222 master and 150 PhD students of STEM Education in nine Universities in south-eastern Nigeria. Proportionate simple random sampling techniques were used to select 50% of the population, which gave a sample size of 186 (111 master and 75 PhD students). Structured questionnaire developed from the literature which was reviewed by the researchers was used to collect data. Each item in the instrument had two columns of needed and difficult with each of the columns assigned a four response options with values 4, 3, 2 and 1. The instrument was validated by specialists. Cronbach alpha method was used to determine the internal consistency of the items and a coefficient of 0.85 was obtained. Data collected were analyzed using mean while the null hypothesis was tested using t-test. The findings revealed that postgraduate students needed 32 competencies in research writing; 25 of the competencies were difficult to employ by the students. The hypothesis tested revealed that there was no significant difference in the responses of the two groups of students on the difficult competencies. It was recommended that lecturers should utilize the 32 competencies while emphasizing the 25 difficult ones to make students competent in producing a quality research work.
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