If research and innovation are to improve in Sub-Saharan Africa, graduate students must learn how to conduct quality research, data analysis, and research writing. This is the subject of the paper authored by Dr. Millicent Oyugi, Dr. Mathew Baker, Dr. Alexa Lamm, and Dr. Kevan Lamm recently published in the Journal of International Agricultural Extension and Education.
Most students, especially those in Africa, delay or drop out of graduate school because of poor research skills. The Witkin (1984) and Borich (1980) models were utilized as complementary tools to help determine the most critical or important research needs among masters and doctoral students from selected universities in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The two methods clarified which research skills were the most important and which were less important.
The most critical needs were getting a manuscript out of a thesis, writing a journal article, choosing between inferential and descriptive statistics, and figuring out what to review in the literature. The results show that graduate students’ research skills need to be improved by giving them good training and exposing them to helpful research tools, some of which are cheap or even free online — Leard Statistics, Weft QDA, PSPP – a free version of SPSS, www.ref-n-write.com, www.lynda.com, LaTex, ZOTERO, Grammarly.com, and YouTube.
In addition, the two methodologies provided a complete picture of the research skills needed by graduate students to engage fruitfully in the thesis and dissertation phases.
To read the full article, click here.
