Research capacity is crucial to successfully completing a thesis or dissertation and obtaining a graduate degree. Unfortunately, in Sub-Saharan Africa, many students abandon or delay their degrees due to limited research and writing skills. Seeing this problem first hand when she was an instructor in Kenya, Dr. Millicent Oyugi aimed to identify the most critical thesis and dissertation research needs of masters and PhD students from Sub-Saharan Africa so they can be thwarted in the future. Along with her team of researchers, Dr. Alexa Lamm, Dr. Kevan Lamm and Dr. Matt Baker she found 38 skills in the literature were necessary for agricultural education and extension/leadership students to be successful. Using both the Borich and Witkin needs assessment models she found 15 items were critical issues when examining students in this part of the world. She also found using one needs assessment model alone does not paint the entire picture but rather combining the two models further identified training needs that could result in greater success. Check out the entire article, published in the Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education here.
