Perception of college of education lecturers about technical education research and evaluation in Nigeria
The study was conducted to ascertain the perception of Federal College of Education Technical lecturers towards technical education research in South-South geo-political zone of Nigeria. In pursuance of this purpose, four research questions were formulated and one hypothesis tested. The population comprised of 70 lecturers of Federal Colleges of Education (Technical) in Asaba, Umunze and Omoku. The entire population was used for the study. No sampling was done because of the fewness of the population. The design used was a survey. The instrument used was the questionnaire. On the whole 57 items were drawn using the likert scale format. The instrument was considered valid by experts with the reliability coefficient of 0.89 using Cronbach alpha. Simple percentage and t-test were used to analyse the data. The study revealed that: Government’s inactive role in supporting and promoting research activities in colleges of education (technical) caused low morale of lecturers towards research; A lot of constraints such as poor attitude to research, falsification of research data, among others are the challenges of technical education research. The study recommends among others that: About 10 percent of the education tax fund should be voted to research; Government should improve its communication network.
How Nigerian teachers select instructional materials
Instructional systems designers and developers have assumed idealized models and theories about the selection and use of materials for instruction. Such models and theories are based on what teachers should do instead of recognizing what teachers are doing when they select materials for instructions. This study examined how teachers select instructional materials for instruction. When making decisions for selecting and using materials teachers were influenced by the content of lessons taught, and by their professional training, rather than by the stating of behavioural objectives. An integrated instructional design should include a consideration of the mental and intuitive efforts of teachers, and of the qualities of materials during not after the need assessment.
The New ‘U’
Today's talk about tenure must be framed within broader discussions about the role of the university. Our university system is now over one hundred years old, the “Old-Time College” is gone, the “cold war” university is no longer viable, and the foundations of the modern “multiversity” are cracking, so it is time to talk about change. But change is not necessarily reform, and resisting change probably will not keep things the way they are, so academics must understand the forces reshaping the university. Whenever I listen to colleagues defend the status quo by saying that the United States has a university system that is the envy of the world, I hear echoes of the Detroit automobile industry's casual dismissal of foreign competitors in the early 1960s. The decision not to change did not preserve the auto industry, and it is unlikely to preserve public universities as we know them. The current debates about tenure began with ideological attacks on “tenured radicals” who used their secure jobs to subvert conservative cultural values. The attack on tenure gathered steam as fiscal hawks in financially-strapped states looked for ways to save money and found huge state university systems with budgets to match. When asked why he robbed banks, the legendary Willie Sutton replied, “Because that's where the money is.” When asked why they are robbing tenure, legislators, regents, and administrators reply, “Because that's where the money is.” Personnel costs are a large share of university budgets and tenure ties the hands of administrators and legislators accustomed to using purse strings to control universities.