Enhancement of Critical Thinking Skills of Vocational and Adult Education Students for Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Business and occupations are becoming more reliant on cognitive-capacity of workers who are well grounded in critical thinking skills. This study is, therefore, focused on the enhancement of critical thinking skills of vocational and adult education students for entrepreneurship development in Nigeria. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. Four hundred and eighteen lecturers in vocational and adult education programmes in universities in South-Eastern Nigeria made up the population for the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study while 32-item structured questionnaire and focus group discussion were used for data collection. The questionnaire was face-validated by experts. Cronbach Alpha reliability technique was used to ascertain the internal consistency of the questionnaire which yielded a coefficient of 0.78. The data collected with the 418 copies of questionnaire administered and returned were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, while t-test statistic was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. It was found that the ability to analyse, evaluate and challenge assumptions, information and opposing point of view are essential critical thinking skills required by students. The study also identified many strategies for enhancing critical thinking skills of students to include: debate and group discussion; solving numerical problems and puzzles, among others. Based on the findings of the study, the researchers recommended that capacity-building programmes should be organized regularly for lecturers for them to teach students critical thinking skills effectively.

Key words: Entrepreneurship, Critical Thinking Skills, Education, Vocational and Adult Education.