Assessment of Small Scale Business Skills Acquired by Business Students in the North-Central Polytechnics, Nigeria

Abstract

This study on assessment of small scale business skills acquired by business students in polytechnics in North Central, Nigeria is aimed at identifying the extent to which business students acquire small scale business skills in order to become self reliant. The study was carried out using 316 business students in ten Polytechnics in North-Central, Nigeria. The population was 316 out of which 153 were used as sample using proportionate stratified random sampling technique. Three research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted survey research design. A 31-item structured questionnaire, based on 5-points rating scale was used as an instrument for data collection. The questionnaire was face validated by two experts. Cronbach Alpha coefficient measure of internal consistency was used to measure the internal consistency which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.83, signifying that the instrument was reliable.  The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the three research questions while the null hypotheses were tested using t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that business students acquire management skills, human relation skills and technical skills to a low extent. It was recommended among others that institutions should continue to inculcate the skills in the students to enable them become self-reliant and also reduces unemployment in Nigeria.