ASSESSMENT OF DIGITAL SKILLS ACQUIRED BY UNIVERSITY BUSINESS EDUCATION STUDENTS FOR EMPLOYABILITY IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess digital skills acquired by university Business Education student for employability in Rivers State. Two specific objectives, research questions and hypotheses were posed and formulated for the study.  The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised of four hundred and fifty nine (459) third year university Business Education students in Rivers State University (RSU) and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IAUE). 100 percent of the total population was used as sample and census sampling technique was adopted. A structured questionnaire titled “Assessment of Digital Skills Acquired by University Business Education Students for Employability Questionnaire (ADSAUBESEQ) was used as instruments for data collection. The instrument was designed on a 4 point rating scale of (SA-4, A-3, DA-2 and SD-1) and used to elicit responses from the respondents. The instrument was face and content validated by three experts in the Faculty of Education, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt. Cronbach Alpha was used to establish the reliability coefficient of 0.87. 450 copies of the questionnaire were retrieved and used for the analysis. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that university Business Education students in RSU and IAUE acquired audio-visual content creation skills and software skills for employability in Rivers State. The researcher therefore recommends that students upon graduation should be giving opportunity of real life experiences through exposure to various audio-visual tools to enable them perform efficiently in business and as employees and that university Business Education students should be exposed to further learning through workshops and seminars to enable them acquire more software skills.