Business Education Trainees During the COVID 19 Pandemic: Empirical Evidence from a Nigerian University

Abstract

The objective of the paper was to determine how the trainees of Business Education skills acquisition were during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three research questions guided the study. One was answered and two were hypothesized and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The study population was four hundred and sixty-six (466) Business Education students in 100-400 levels for the 2021/2022 academic year. A sample of 266 respondents were used for the study. A structured questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts, two were from the Department of Vocational and Technical Education and one was from Measurement and Evaluation, University of Benin, Benin City. To establish the reliability of the instrument, it was pilot tested on thirty (30) students outside the sample population. Cronbach’s Alpha statistics was used to analyse the data and a reliability coefficient of 0.72 was obtained. The result of the study showed that the perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on acquisition of skills by Business Education students was high. Equally, there was no significant difference of the perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the acquisition of skills by Business Educations students based on level of study and gender. It was therefore, recommended that managers of education should proactively and frankly make provision for digital and pedagotronic facilities that would enhance the acquisition of skill in Nigerian universities, among other things.