Charity Oluchi Aneke
Abstract
This study assessed research skills acquisition among postgraduate education students in public universities in Cross River State, Nigeria. Ex post facto research design was adopted for the study, while stratified random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 400 from a population of 2,651 post graduate students in the two public universities in the area of the study. An instrument developed by the researcher and titled: “Research Skills Acquisition Questionnaire” (RSAQ), duly validated with reliability estimates of the sub-variables between .72 and .81 was used to collect data for the study. The data collected were subjected to statistical analysis using one sample t-test. The study revealed that postgraduate students’ research skills acquisition (problem identification, hypothesis formulation, literature review, data collection, data analysis and research reporting) was significantly high. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that educators should prioritize research skills training and provide students with hands-on experience in research design, data collection, and analysis. Also, educators should provide targeted support to students who may be struggling with research skills.