Issue Details
Strategies for Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practical Skill Acquisition by Metalwork Students in Technical Colleges in Rivers State
Ekwueme Orikoha
Page No. : 1-11
ABSTRACT
The study sought to determine the appropriate strategies for bridging the gap between theory and practical skill acquisition by metalwork students in technical colleges in Rivers State. Two research questions was posed to guide the study and one hypothesis. The study adopted descriptive survey research design and was carried out in Rivers State. The population of the study consist of 23 respondents which comprises of 12 metalwork teachers and 10 metalwork instructors in four government technical colleges in Rivers State. The instrument for data collection was a 21 structured item questionnaire developed by the researcher on five point Likert rating scale. The instrument was validated by three experts and the internal consistency of the instrument was established using Cronbach alpha reliability method which gave a reliability index of 0.82. The research questions were analyzed using mean and standard deviation and t-test statistic was used to test the hypothesis of no significance difference at 0.05 level significance. Following the analysis, it was revealed all the ten (10) items on instructional strategies and eleven (11) items on tools/equipment and facilities are all required in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice in skill acquisition by metalwork students in technical colleges in Rivers State. Based on result of the study, the following recommendations were made; that government should provide state of the art tools/equipment and facilities to technical colleges (metalwork production unit) in Nigeria as this will help in bridging the gap between theory and practice in skill acquisition and the technical teachers should be constantly retained and motivated with various incentives to encourage them to be the best in discharging their duties.
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