UNIVERSITY LECTURERS’ UTILIZATION OF INNOVATIVE PEDAGOGY AND UNDERGRADUATES’ EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS OUTCOME IN CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the composite predictive relationship between university lecturers’ utilization of innovative pedagogy and undergraduates’ employability skill outcomes in Cross River State, Nigeria. One hypothesis was formulated for the study and correlation research design was adopted. The population of the study consists of 14,608 final year students in public universities in Cross River State (9,887 final year students in the University of Calabar UNICAL and 4,721 final year students in the University of Cross River State UNICROSS). The study adopted multi-stage sampling technique. Stratified sampling technique was first used to divide the population into two strata: UNICAL and UNICROSS. The next stage was the utilization of Taro Yamane formula for sample size determination which gave a sample size of 389. Simple random sampling technique was then used to select 389 students from the study population, where 263 students representing 67.68% were drawn from UNICAL while 126 students representing 32.32% were drawn from UNICROSS. An instrument titled: “University Lecturers’ Utilization of Innovative Pedagogy and Undergraduates’ Employability Skill Outcomes Questionnaire (ULUIPUESOQ)” was administered for data collection. The instrument was subjected to face validity and Cronbach Alpha reliability method. Data collected were subjected to multiple regression analysis and results tested at .05 level of significance. The results revealed that university lecturers’ utilization of the identified innovative pedagogy significantly predict undergraduates’ employability skill outcomes in Cross River State. It was concluded that innovative pedagogical approaches are sine qua non for the acquisition of employability skills by university undergraduates to stem the wave of rising graduate unemployment in Nigeria. It was recommended among others that university lecturers should be motivated through incentivized periodic training and re-training on how to utilize a mix of innovative pedagogical approaches for eventual transmission of relevant knowledge and employability skills to undergraduates.