Pedagogical Practices Utilized in Office Education for Developing Students’ Managerial Competencies in Degree Awarding Institutions in Rivers State

Abstract

This study investigated pedagogical practices utilized in office education for developing students’ managerial competencies in degree awarding institutions in Rivers State. The study was completed using two research questions and two hypotheses. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population and sample of the study comprised of 43 business education lecturers and 515 final year students during the 2022/2023 academic session from four tertiary institutions, namely: Rivers State University, University of Port-Harcourt, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education and Federal College of Education (Tech.), Omoku offering degree programme in business education in Rivers State. The instrument was subjected to face and content validity by three experts, two experts were of Business Education and one expert of Measurement and Evaluation from Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Rivers State. Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient test was used to test the instrument internal consistency, the computation done with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), version 21 yielded a reliability index of 0.74 for the two clusters of the questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using mean (▁x) and standard deviation (sd) to answer the research questions, while independent t-test was used to test hypotheses raised at 0.05 level of significance. Out of the entire copies of questionnaire distributed, only 80% were properly filled and returned. The results revealed that both lecturers and students agreed that traditional and innovative pedagogical practices are being utilized for developing students’ managerial skills. The traditional pedagogical practices used by the lecturers include lecture, case study, seminar and discussions; while the innovative pedagogical practices utilized include mentoring, experiential, inquiry, blended learning and team learning. The results also revealed that there is no significant difference between the view of lecturers and students on the pedagogical practices utilized in office education for developing students’ managerial competencies in degree awarding institutions in Rivers State. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that workshops and conferences should be organized intermittently to refine the traditional and innovative pedagogical skills of office educators in order to enhance their students’ managerial competencies.