Abstract:
The study investigated the influence of teaching practice on Business Education students' employability skills in universities in North-central and South-western States, Nigeria. The study which employed a descriptive survey identified three employability skills which were communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Three objectives, three research questions and three null hypotheses were raised for the study. The entire 400 level business education students in universities offering business education programs in North-central and South-western States, Nigeria constituted the population of the study. There was no sampling since the entire population was considered sizeable and manageable. A structured 43-items questionnaire titled Questionnaire on Influence of Teaching Practice on Students' Employability Skills (QITPSES) was designed for the study. The reliability of the instrument was ascertained using the Cronbach Alpha method to obtain the r-coefficient of 0.93 for clusters B1-B3 of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to 1,594 business education students in universities in North-central and South-western States, Nigeria. One hundred and forty copies of the questionnaire were not returned and so 1,454 copies were used for the study. The research questions were analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation. T-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to test the null hypotheses of the study at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed among others that teaching practice positively influence business education students' communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills to a high extent (x?= 3.01, 2.76, and 3.02; SD= 0.85, 0.60, and 0.81 respectively). It was concluded therefore that business education students, irrespective of their background (gender and institution type) rated the influence of teaching practice on communication skills, teamwork skills, and problem-solving skills as positive to a high extent. Based on the findings, three recommendations were proffered, among which was that Government should provide finance in form of stipend for trainee teachers (students on teaching practice program) as this will encourage them more to acquire the necessary employability skills.
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