The Role of Staff in Shaping Undergraduate Students Behavior for Sustainable Academic Performance at The Catholic University of Eastern Africa (Published)
Shaping student behaviour has become a major focus of education worldwide. As educational institutions seek to prepare students for success in an increasingly competitive and complex world, they recognize the need to not only teach academic content, but also to develop students’ socio-emotional skills, character and values such as ethics and integrity, honesty and truthfulness. In universities, there have been cases of students involved in exam malpractices, such as copying, doing exams for others, poor study practices, and weak adherence to ethical conduct and integrity. Besides, a notable proportion of the undergraduate students tends to deviate from positive behaviours upon entering campus life which affects their academic performance. This study, by using quantitative and qualitative research methods, descriptive design, and purposive sampling of 80 students and 40 teaching and non-teaching staff, examined the role of staff in shaping the behaviour of undergraduate students at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, main campus, Nairobi, for sustainable academic performance. Questionnaires were administered by the researchers to collect data from respondents. The results showed that the participants strongly agreed with the notion that efficient classroom management plays a crucial role in creating a conducive learning environment and enhancing student behaviour. It was also found that role modelling has an influence on the students’ behaviour for sustainable academic performance. Moreover, respondents strongly agreed that students’ guidance and counselling played a significant role in shaping their behaviour. Besides, the results showed that the attitudes of students have a considerable influence on their behaviour, making it essential to address negative attitudes to encourage desirable conduct. The study recommends that the institution should implement regular classroom observations and provide constructive feedback. The University should identify individuals with a track record of academic and personal success to serve as positive role models for the students. Staff training initiatives that prioritise the development of effective communication skills should be implemented. Involving students in developing and implementing initiatives related to behaviour change for sustainable academic performance is highly recommended.
Keywords: : Academic Performance, Attitudes, Behaviour, Environment, role modelling
Measuring Global Competence of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students (Published)
Twenty-first century students live in an interconnected, diverse and intensively changing world. Developing intercultural and global competences is of major importance. In such a context this study comes to investigate global competence of 336 undergraduate and postgraduate students through a quantitative methodology. Convenient and snowball sampling techniques were followed, whereas the data were analyzed with the statistical software SPSS 27.0 for Windows. According to the findings, most of the students demonstrate high levels of competence and some variables, such as gender, age, study program and level of ICT knowledge seem to affect some of the sub-scales.
Citation: Zoe Karanikola (2022) Measuring Global Competence of undergraduate and postgraduate students, International Journal of Education, Learning and Development, Vol. 10, No.8, pp.27-39
Keywords: Attitudes, Global Competence, Knowledge, Skills, Values, undergraduate and postgraduate students
The Degree of Faculty’s Use of Authentic Assessment Tools at Al-Quds University and Their Relation to Their Attitudes towards Them (Published)
The study aims to investigate and realize the degree of faculty’s use of authentic assessment tools at Al-Quds University and their relation to their attitudes towards them. To achieve the purpose of the study, a sample of (99) faculty members at the university was selected in the academic year 2016/2017. Two instruments were developed by the researchers, a questionnaire to measure the degree of faculty’s use of authentic assessment tools, and another questionnaire to measure their attitudes towards authentic assessment. And the reliability of the two instruments was reached. The results of the study showed that the use of authentic assessment tolls by the faculty at Al-Quds University is moderate, and there were statistically significant differences at (0.05 ≥ α) in the mean score and in favor of gender and academic rank. And there were no statistically significant differences with regard to experience. The results also showed that there were statistically significant differences in the mean score of the faculty’s attitudes towards authentic assessment which reached (0.05 ≥ α) and was too high, and in favor of academic rank, and there were no significant differences with regard to gender and experience. The study concluded that there is a small positive relationship between the faculty’s use of authentic assessment tools and their attitudes towards it. In light of the above results, the study recommends conducting other research about the obstacle that stand on the way of using authentic assessment tools, and carrying out training courses for the faculty about the importance and need of using authentic assessment tools.
Keywords: Al-Quds University, Attitudes, Authentic Assessment, Faculty
Staff Attitudes as an Indicator of Change Readiness: A Case of a Higher Education Institution Adopting ICT in Students’ Record Management (Published)
This paper is a product of research that sought to evaluate the attitudes portrayed by staff in higher education administration in an effort to adopt ICT for students’ record keeping. With an endeavour to bring an understanding of change management in the context of an institution of higher learning, knowledge of the level of staff readiness for the change is important. Staff attitudes were evaluated in this paper because they are considered an important indicator of change readiness. The change under focus is adoption of a Student Information System (SIS) at an Institution of higher learning, Africa International University (AIU) and the results could relate to other institutions. The study involved university staff members who were in either management of course registration, grades information or both for the academic year 2011/2012. Mixed methods were used involving qualitative data, collected through pre-study interviews and quantitative data in the actual study. Data were collected in three phases, first was by face-to-face semi-structured interviews in a preliminary study with 2 members of the University’s Management Committee, and second was pre-study with 6 representatives of local best practices in records management (USIU and Strathmore University). Descriptive data for the actual study with AIU staff members were collected using a questionnaire which mainly collected quantitative data but also had room for open-ended questions. Evaluative Research design was adopted for the study, where descriptive data from AIU staff were placed in comparison with the pre-set criteria from the best practice institutions. Judgment was then made to determine the level of change readiness among the staff members at AIU based on prevailing attitudes to adopt a SIS in management of students’ academic records. The threshold for readiness was set at 67%. The entire study evaluated 5 indicators of change readiness, and only one, (staff attitudes) which is the focus of this paper met the set threshold to indicate change readiness towards the use of a SIS in records management.
Keywords: Attitudes, Change Management, Information Systems, Records Management, information and communication technology (ICT).
THE EFFECTS OF TEACHER CHARACTERISTICS AND ATTITUDES ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT IN KCSE ECONOMICS EXAMINATION (Published)
Economics is a very important subject in the school curriculum. However, since the adoption of 8-4-4 system of education in Kenya in the mid 1980’s, the number of students registering for economics in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) has been steadily dropping. This has been attributed to the unsatisfactory student’s performance in KCSE economics. This paper sought to examine the effect of teacher characteristics and attitudes on student performance in Economics subject. The study is a field based survey conducted in secondary schools offering economics in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. Simple purposive sampling was used to get the representative sample for the study. The representative sample, constituted all the fourth form students of economics in all the secondary schools in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya, Inspectors of schools in districts where economics was being offered and teachers from the schools where the subject was offered. A total of 187 students, 32 teachers and 4 district inspectors took part. Data was collected from the sample using questionnaires. The data collected was analysed using Excel software program. Basic statistical techniques were used to analyse various items in the questionnaire. These include calculating the averages, frequencies, percentages and totals. These statistical techniques were used to make comparisons in the various data collected. Conclusions on the variables analysed were finally drawn from these comparisons. The study concludes that teachers have a positive attitude towards the subject thus poor performance could be attributed to other factors than teacher attitudes. The author expects that teachers of economics will benefit from the findings on the identified factors that influence the instructional procedures and strategies and hence improve the performance of the subject in the national examinations.
Keywords: Attitudes, Economics Examination, Effects, KCSE, Student Achievement, Teacher Characteristics