PRACTICAL SKILLS FOR EMPLOYABILITY IN CARPENTRY/JOINERY POSSESSED BY FINAL YEAR BUILDING/WOODWORK STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTH-EAST STATES OF NIGERIA

By C. L. Mbachu, P. N. Opara, E. I. Egba & E. N. Elom

Abstract: The study assessed practical skills in carpentry/joinery possessed by final year building/woodwork students of Southeast universities. Two research questions were posed and two hypotheses were formulated respectively to guide the study. The study adopted a survey research design. The population of the study was 20 and there was no sampling because the population was manageable. An instrument (observational schedule) containing 20 items and each item has 2 clusters, was used as the instrument for data collection. The instrument was subjected to face validation by three experts. Kendal Coefficience of Concordance (W) was used to establish the internal consistency of the instrument which yielded a reliability value 0.76. Data collected were analysed using the mean and standard deviation for the research questions at acceptance value of 2.50 - 3.49 as highly possessed and 3.50 - 4.00 as very highly possessed, while t-test was used for the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that the final year building/woodwork students of the universities in South East of Nigeria possessed practical skills in a satisfactory level in carpentry and joinery. There were no significant differences between federal and state universities in the skill areas. It was recommended that lecturers and instructors should adopt competency-based teaching methods that emphasize hands-on learning and skill mastery.
Keywords: Practical Skills, Carpentry/Joinery, Building/Woodwork, University and Employability