PERCEPTIONS OF STAKE HOLDERS ON THE ACADEMIC STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES FOR LABORATORY SKILLS ACQUISITION IN NIGERIAN POLYTECHNICS

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the perceptions of stake holders on the Academic Staff Development Programmes for Laboratory Skills Acquisition in Nigerian Polytechnics. It sought to identify the academic staff development programmes available, ascertain the adequacy of academic staff development programme, determine the accessibility of staff development programmes, ascertain the relevance of staff development programmes to capacity building of staff to teach laboratory skills, and two others. Seven research question and seven hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted descriptive survey design.

The target population was 2495 academic staff and 74,850 students of Science Laboratory Technology Department in all the eighty seven (87) polytechnics offering Science Laboratory Technology programme in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. Stratified Sampling technique is used to sample out twelve (12) polytechnics with a total of 398 academic staff and 1866 students. Simple random sampling was employed to select thirty (30) students and Purposive sampling was used to select twenty (20) academic staff from each of the twelve selected polytechnics. Making a total of 240 academic staff and 360 students that are to complete the questionnaires used for the data collection. Out of these, a total of 234 academic staff and 348 students‟ questionnaire were filled and returned. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS Version 20).

The descriptive statistics of items frequencies, mean and standard deviations, was used to answer the research questions while the seven null hypotheses were tested using Chi-square (X2) contingency Test at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The findings of this study revealed among others, that participation in conferences, seminars, workshops has enhanced academic staff ability to develop students‟ critical thinking, knowledge of new research developments in his area of specialization. In conclusion, the seven null hypotheses had p values that were lower than the significant value of 0.05alpha level of significance set for the study. In view of this, the null hypotheses were rejected. Based on the findings from this study, recommendations were made among others that: Federal and state government should set up monitoring team to all state and Federal; Polytechnics for regular inspection of laboratory materials, Staff of polytechnics especially the academic staff be made to acquire adequate skill on laboratory practices. Non governmental agencies and rich individuals should assist in complementing government efforts financially.

PERCEPTIONS OF STAKE HOLDERS ON THE ACADEMIC STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES FOR LABORATORY SKILLS ACQUISITION IN NIGERIAN POLYTECHNICS