Problems emerging from practicing research methodologies among postgraduate students in Nigerian universities

Abstract

The on-going debates and conflicts between defenders of the quantitative research approach and advocates of the qualitative approach to research tends to leave the post graduate students in a dilemma and disillusioned as to which approach to use in their research process. However, the advent of mixed method as the third approach to research tended to become a panacea to the problems faced by the post graduate students, on the one hand, while in the other hand its becomes unpopular and worrisome at the end of their final examination. This paper presents the summary of difficulties experienced by Post graduate students in using either of the approaches i.e. quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. Questionnaire was the only instrument used for the data collection. The population of the study comprises only post graduate students sampled from different faculties in the 18 selected federal universities in Nigeria. The findings showed that majority of the respondents indicated that they usually found themselves in a dilemma on which approach to take. Many of the post graduate students showed that they have to make an uninformed choice of which approach to use in their research thesis/dissertations. However, some of the respondents revealed most of the time they are preyed upon by a self-centred biased decision of or imposition from their supervisors. The further the findings showed that majority of the students used quantitative research more, while a mixed method was the least research approach used by the post graduate students in Nigerian university. The results showed that this approach is still not popular among the students and the researchers. Finally, the paper concludes that there is serious re-orientation needed for both students and academics on the research methodologies in Nigerian Universities.

Key Words: Research, methodology, postgraduate, students, Universities, Nigeria, etc.