Title: An Analysis of the Impact of Gender and Level of Education on the Skills Acquired by Engineering Students
Authors: Oyeka Dumtoochukwu Obiora, Mowarin Michaella Edesiri, Chimdalu Princes Okide
Volume: 8
Issue: 9
Pages: 24-31
Publication Date: 2024/09/28
Abstract:
There is a gap between skills acquired in universities and the skills which are sought by industries. This is especially a problem in developing countries due to some factors such as paucity of funding and inadequate equipment and resources. Consequently, some students often go outside the university classroom to obtain the needed skills. The aim of this work is to provide an insight into the relationship between the skills acquired by students of Engineering in a developing country and how their level of education and gender could influence this. The Nigerian university education system is used as a case study. Dummy variable multi regression analysis techniques used for this work showed an F-ratio of 5.095, R square value 0.23 and at a 5% significance level, a p-value of 0.00013 which is not statistically significant hence indicating that the effect of gender and level of education on the total number of skills acquired by students both within and outside the university is substantial. The work was able to reveal that, in a developing country like Nigeria, being a male student is more likely to lead to the student acquiring an average of about 1.72 more skills than being a female student if all other variables in the model, namely the level of education of the student, were held at constant level.