John Joseph AGAH, Samuel Uchenna NWANI and Thaddeus Onyebuchi UKWUEZE
Development of Rubric for Empirical Rating of Postgraduate Students Research Skills
The study developed and validated a rubric for empirical rating of post graduate students’ research skills. Instrumentation research design was adopted for the study. The study was carried out among the five units from the Department of Science Education University of Nigeria, Nsukka. One research question and one hypothesis guided the study. Purposive sampling technique was adopted. A total of 177 students’ project reports were used to collect the data using “Empirical Research Skill Rating Rubric (ERSRR)”. The instrument was subjected to a preliminary (face) and empirical validation. The instrument was trial tested on 20 Post graduate students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Project reports of twenty students who have done their seminars and waiting for Oral (external) examination was graded by four different raters (lecturers). The four raters (lecturers) graded the projects to empirically rate the research skills deployed by each student. A reliability coefficient of 0.78 and 0.80 was obtained using Cronbach alpha and inter rater’s variability, indicating that the instrument is reliable. The data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation while the hypothesis was tested using analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The result shows that post graduate research skills were high, and there is no significant difference in the mean scores of students in different areas. The study recommended that higher institutions of learning should adopt the developed instrument in assessing their students since it has been confirmed reliable and when used across different subject areas, the results did not significantly differ.
John Joseph AGAH, Samuel Uchenna NWANI and Thaddeus Onyebuchi UKWUEZE
Development of Rubric for Empirical Rating of Postgraduate Students Research Skills
The study developed and validated a rubric for empirical rating of post graduate students’ research skills. Instrumentation research design was adopted for the study. The study was carried out among the five units from the Department of Science Education University of Nigeria, Nsukka. One research question and one hypothesis guided the study. Purposive sampling technique was adopted. A total of 177 students’ project reports were used to collect the data using “Empirical Research Skill Rating Rubric (ERSRR)”. The instrument was subjected to a preliminary (face) and empirical validation. The instrument was trial tested on 20 Post graduate students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Project reports of twenty students who have done their seminars and waiting for Oral (external) examination was graded by four different raters (lecturers). The four raters (lecturers) graded the projects to empirically rate the research skills deployed by each student. A reliability coefficient of 0.78 and 0.80 was obtained using Cronbach alpha and inter rater’s variability, indicating that the instrument is reliable. The data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation while the hypothesis was tested using analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The result shows that post graduate research skills were high, and there is no significant difference in the mean scores of students in different areas. The study recommended that higher institutions of learning should adopt the developed instrument in assessing their students since it has been confirmed reliable and when used across different subject areas, the results did not significantly differ.