Teaching with Technology

Citation

Ololube, N. P., Ubogu, A. E., Egbezor, D. E., and Nwachukwu, U.  (2010).  Evaluating faculty teaching of research methodology to undergraduate geography students in a Nigerian university.  International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education,
6 (1), 30-44.  doi: 10.4018/jicte.2010091103

Main Points

The effective ways of teaching research methods to students is a process closely connected to socializing students towards writing an effective research project before graduation and determines how successful and effective they are in conducting individualized research.  Several factors apart from setting up a successful learning community are essential, but competencies determine faculty effectiveness.  This paper appraises students’ evaluation of faculty (SEF).  It evaluates students’ perception of competencies required by faculty in teaching research methodology to undergraduate geography students at the Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria.  Using a questionnaire to gather data for the study, the paper argues that by evaluating the performance of faculty members, their knowledge, expertise, skills, and by applying certain adaptation mechanisms in teaching, the experience and effectiveness of teaching students’ research methodology can be significantly improved.  The authors use this medium to encourage colleges and universities, education planners and policy makers in Nigeria of the need to introduce and carry out SEF along side other evaluation techniques in determining faculty performances and effectiveness.

Analysis

Student evaluations have been in America since the 1960s and have really become a part of our methodology in U.S. colleges and universities.  The questions has always been whether these evaluations should carry a small or large weight in assessing instructors.  The authors apply an interesting idea to their study on assessing faculty effectiveness in teaching geography students how to conduct effective research by having the students evaluate the faculty.  The notion they are studying is if a fair and unbiased correlation can be made from the student assessments on faulty effectiveness to the students learning.  The total sampling sizes are small with the total number of faculty at 20, with only two Professors, and a student size of 86 respondents.  The study was aimed at how students perceived faculty teaching methodology at improving or decreasing student academic achievement.  They asked 19 questions that focused on five main areas (1) to measure how students perceive faculty teaching methodology, (2) to evaluate the extent to which students perceive faculty instructional material utilization competencies, (3) to analyze the extent to which students perceive faculty instructional process competencies, (4) to evaluate the degree to which students perceive faculty instructional evaluation competencies, and (5) to assess the extent to which students perceive faculty interaction process competences.  The study results support the notion that students are relevant in faculty member evaluation and their input is a significant step for constructively improving the quality and role of faculty members.  It revalidated that using SEF is a meaningful part of the overall faculty assessment process.