EVALUATION IN BUSINESS EDUCATION: CHALLENGES OF MASTERY OF SHORTHAND SKILLS

Abstract

Shorthand is one of the courses offered at all levels of the secretarial studies. A greater percentage of secretarial students have always performed very poorly in shorthand. This situation has resulted in a number of students calling for either the reduction of credit load allocation to shorthand or total removal of the course from the OTM/Secretarial Studies curriculum. Various reasons have been advanced as causes of the disturbing rate of failure which include teachers and student's factors, lack of interest, accidental entry into the programme, assessment procedure, lack of qualified teachers, population of students, lack of facilities and equipment. Although some of the factors are being adequately addressed, there are some other very serious factors that contribute to student's inability to achieve shorthand objectives of the programme. The study adopted the survey research design. The population of the study was 15 lecturers/Instructors and eighty-five HND IFT and HND II FT students in OTM department of Federal Polytechnic, Ede. The instrument for data collection used was a 4-point Likert Rating scale titled “Evaluation of Mastery of Shorthand Skills Questionnaires for students (EMSSQS) and “Evaluation of Mastery of Shorthand Skills Questionnaire for lecturers (EMSSQL). The reliability of the instrument was determined using crombach alpha with a co-efficient value of 0.86. The data generated was analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The findings of the study revealed that the objectives of shorthand programme/course are not being adequately met and that many strategies are employed by teachers to give the students the false impression that they are doing well. It was concluded that lecturers should encourage their students to work hard and studentsshould disabuse their minds that shorthand is no longer used in offices because shorthand skill is the only skill that differentiate them from other students. It was recommended that the number of hours allocated to Shorthand should be increased and that lecturers should use various methods of teaching to impart the skill to the students.