Determination of Factors that Contribute to Postgraduate Students’ Delay in their Thesis/Dissertation Completion

Year 2020, Volume: 2 Issue: 2, 78 - 86, 01.07.2020

Nnebedum Chidi Obuegbe Adaobi Sylvia

Abstract

Most postgraduate students in federal and state universities rarely complete their thesis/dissertation
at the appropriate time. It therefore becomes necessary to determine the factors that contribute to
postgraduate students’ delay in their thesis/dissertation completion in federal and state universities
in south east, Nigeria. The study was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses were
tested at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey research design was utilized to assess 1,254
students sampled from a population of all the postgraduate students in federal and state universities,
south east, Nigeria using multistage sampling procedure. Questionnaire titled ‘‘Factors that
Contribute to Delay in Postgraduate Students’ Thesis/Dissertation Completion (FCDPSTDC)’’ was
used for data collection. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation
and the hypotheses were tested using t-test. The findings of the study revealed among others that
supervisors and students’ related factors contribute to the delay of postgraduate students’
completion of their thesis/dissertation in federal and state universities, south east, Nigeria. Based on
the findings, it was recommended among others that university management should organize
mandatory yearly orientation programme for postgraduate students to equip them with research
skills and also guide them on how to properly write and complete thesis/dissertation at the
stipulated time.

Keywords

Factors, postgraduate students,, thesis/ dissertation

References

• Ugwu, A. N., Ifeanyieze, F. O., & Agbo, P. N. (2015). Competency needs of postgraduate students of stem education in research writing in nigerian universities. Creative Education, 6(1), 701-706