Perception of pedagogical innovations in business education and students’ active learning engagement in state universities in south-south Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated pedagogical innovations in Business Education and students’ active learning engagement in State Universities in South-South, Nigeria, two research questions and null hypotheses guided the study. The correlational research design was adopted having a population of 2,778 Business Educators and undergraduate students from six State-owned universities that award degrees in Business Education in South-South, Nigeria. However, 330 Business Educators and students respectively were sampled. Two sets of instruments titled “Pedagogical Innovation in Business Education Questionnaire and Students’ Active Learning Engagement were validated for data collection while reliability index of 0.85 and 0.83 were established respectively, using Cronbach Alpha method. Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was adopted for the analysis and to test null hypotheses. Findings show that a strong relationship exists between activity-based pedagogy and Students’ active learning engagement as perceived by Business Educators and Students of State Universities in South- South, Nigeria. It was recommended that digital - based pedagogy should be adopted as a pedagogical approach in Business Education to promote inclusive learning and better understanding of concepts, ideas and retention of knowledge by students. Also, cross-curricular connection-based pedagogy should be adopted as pedagogical approach in Business Education to enable students draw knowledge from other disciplines and which is a key element for improving the quality of education and assimilation of new knowledge.