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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012) 626 – 629

UKM Teaching and Learning Congress 2011

Measuring Graduate Students Research Skills

T. Subahan Mohd Meerah*, Kamisah Osman, Effendi Zakaria, Zanaton Haji Ikhsan,
Pramela Krish, Denish Koh Choo Lian & Diyana Mahmod
Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Abstract

This paper reports the research knowledge and skills of a random sample of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia postgraduate
students. For the purpose of this study a questionnaire was developed and validated. It is shown to have a moderately high
reliability coefficient in the construct measured. A random selection of degree and graduate students graduating at the end of
2010/2011 was asked to fill a questionnaire to measure the outcomes in research knowledge and skills. The administration of
the instrument took place in the graduation hall when the graduates were picking up their academic gowns. The results indicate
that the graduates in general have moderate knowledge and competencies to conduct research. The implication of the study is
that further enhancement of the research training is needed in order to produce very knowledgeable and skillful researcher in the
students’ field of specialization.
© 2011
© 2011 Published
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Learning 2011 2011 Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Keywords: Research skills; instrument development; post-graduate education

1. Introduction

Malaysia need more research personnel and thus encourage the local higher institutions to train more
postgraduate students embarking on Doctorate programme. A number of ‘new’ higher institutions and universities
have begun to offer doctorate programmes especially in the field of education.
Traditionally the doctorate programme is offered ‘by research’ especially in education. One possible reason not
offering an alternative, course work and dissertation mode is because of sheer number of students in each
specialization is too small and not economical to run the programme. Another possible reason was the lack of
manpower to offer a number of courses. Yearly the number of applicants has been steadily increasing. Some of
these students are fully sponsored by the government. Teachers form the main bulk of those seeking doctorate
degrees in education. Unsponsored students normally enrol as part time students. Despite the availability of new
programmes more students gaining entry into the doctoral programmes, the number of doctoral students graduating
in three years of their studies is relative small. Part of the reason was students take a long time to graduate. A

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +6-013-3321-551; fax: +6-03-8925-4372

E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer reviewed under responsibility of the UKM Teaching and Learning Congress 2011
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.433
 T. Subahan Mohd Meerah et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012) 626 – 629 627

significant number of them fail or took even longer than five years to complete. The table below shows the
completion rate for doctoral students who were sponsored to study in education.

Table 1. Time and completion

Time to Graduate Percentage of Students

(in months)
36 – 42 30
42 – 60 60
60 and above 10
(including incomplete)

Overall about 30% of the students manage to complete their doctoral studies within three years, even though they
were sponsored and on study leave.
It is important to note that the selected doctoral students were high performers (based on their yearly evaluation)
and have the capability to be future leaders in their field. The part times students of course take a longer time to
graduate. There are a number of factors on the issue of time to completion (Seagram, Gould & Pyke 1998).
One of main factor that can account for this phenomenon is the inadequacy of student preparation into the
doctoral studies programmes. The literature indicates that many candidates come into the programme with weak
prior knowledge and skills in conducting research. Lecturer supervisors often assume doctoral candidates to possess
the ability to conduct research when they enrolled in their PhD by research programmes. Lecturer expected that
after completing successfully their first and second degree courses including attending research courses and
experiencing research, these candidates have the capability to conduct research. They should be able to seek
knowledge and use the library or other web-based knowledge facilities. Working experiences might also have
helped. A review of literature on preparation for doctoral studies has indicated various necessary knowledge and
skills to acquire in order to conduct and write research. This is because the students at the end of their studies (base
on their research) have to submit their theses which are evaluated before the institution awarding them the PhD. A
thesis is an accumulation of students original research work to show the student has accomplished as a professional
researcher.
It is also a measure of student capability to conduct research and capable to produce new knowledge.

2. Research skills and knowledge

Thus students need to acquire the skills in conducting research during their PhD studies in order acquire
competencies to conduct research in their own professional field. Murtonen (2010), Zainuriyah (2009) and Rosli
(2010) among others have identified through their research, the knowledge and skills that students should acquire
before conducting and writing their research. Kardash (2000) also has identified the skills required in his study on
the development of research skills of undergraduate engaged in research. Similarly Powers and Eyright (1987) have
also conducted graduate research skills which were thought to be important by faculty members.
The accessibility of information brought about by the development of information communication technology
has made it necessary for future graduates to be able to handle information. The universities nowadays require
students to take courses on the use of computer for seeking information and also compulsory courses on research
methodology in order to be able to benefit and understand research. Universities have put substantial resources and
personnel in order to help the students to acquire research skills and to prepare them as graduate of future human
capital have to be knowledge based workers. Studies have shown that the learning outcomes of methodology and
other related courses on research were not easily attainable by most students in the social science and education
during undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (Murtonen & Lehtinen 2003). Research skills on the use of
statistics are not easily acquired by the students (Murtonen 2005). Others reported an overall difficulty in the
methodology of research. The culture conducting research is important in research and development of a country
for economic and well-being purpose.
It is important for undergraduates in their preparation into post graduate education to develop their research skills
early (Gilmore, J and Feldon, B. 2010). One of the major reasons for postgraduate students experiencing difficulties
628 T. Subahan Mohd Meerah et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012) 626 – 629

is their lack of preparedness in research skills prior to embarking their research work. A review of studies on
research skills of developing researchers have revealed some major research skills that seemed important to acquire
in order to be able to conduct research. Of course, there were a range of skills necessary for doing research. Top
among them are information seeking skills, communicating (and submitting and writing skills), methodological
skills and data analytical (skills in using appropriate analysis and statistics). However the demand of developing
research skills for undergraduates may be less, unless they will be engaged in research work, but irrespective of the
level, master and doctoral students, it is important especially if one is engaged in research or working in a
professional setting.

3. Study Purpose

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia is a research university and all students graduating from its programme ought to
have some experience in research and acquire research skills. Research is a major outcome for all students
especially those studying master’s and doctoral degree. This is well stipulated as outcomes of postgraduate as well
undergraduate programmes. No study has yet been conducted to assess this outcome. Thus, this study has been
carried out to measure the outcome of research skills among its graduates. The purpose of this research is to
measure the research skills of graduates from the university and hope to contribute existing knowledge on student
development of research skills.

4. Method

An instrument to measure research skills of graduate students has been developed for this purpose. It has been
validated based on expert judgment on the content and the components of research skills was acquired from the
review research based literature. The internal consistency approaches was used to test the reliability (the average
reliability of the constructs and found to have a reliability. The items area 5-point Likert scale.
This questionnaire was administrated to a sample of graduates who came to get their academic gowns for the
2010/2011 convocation ceremony. A number of research students has volunteered to distribute and collect the
questionnaire after it has been filled.
A total 529 respondents has responded to the questionnaire and the data were processed descriptively. The Table
2 showed from the total of respondent number of, 45 were graduating with master degree and the rest for
undergraduate’s degree.

Table 2. Sample size in terms level study

Level No. of Respondent

Undergraduate 484
Master 45

5. Findings

The data from the questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS programme. The result of the analysis is shown in the
table below.
 T. Subahan Mohd Meerah et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012) 626 – 629 629

Table 3 Research Skill of Undergraduate and Post Graduate Marks

SKILLS IST DEGREE MASTER MEAN STD

LOW MODERATE GOOD VERY LOW MODERATE GOOD VERY
GOOD GOOD

STATISTICAL 80 171 184 49 13 15 15 2 3.08 0.84

ANALYSIS 16.5% 35.3% 38.0% 10.1% 28.9 33.3% 33.3% 4.4%
%

INFORMATION 5 7 292 180 0 0 28 17 3.96 0.45

SEEKING 1.0% 1.4% 60.3% 37.2% 0.0% 0.0% 62.2% 37.8%

PROBLEM 7 145 296 36 0 15 22 8 3.39 0.61

SOLVING 1.4% 30.0% 61.2% 7.4% 0.0% 33.3% 48.9% 17.8%

COMMUNICATI 5 10 290 179% 0 0 29 16 3.99 0.47

ON 1.0% 2.1% 59.9% 37.0 0.0% 0.0% 64.4% 35.6%

METHODOLOG 82 185 189 28 4 16 20 5 2.36 0.83

Y 16.9 38.2 39.0 5.8 8.9 35.6 44.4 11.1

The result showed that graduates were well-equipped in the research skill and should be able conduct research on
their own. However further improvement is needed particularly in the methodology and quantitative analysis skills.

6. Conclusion

The literatures indicate various methods of professional development on this aspect of training were tried out
successfully. The university could offer such training and workshops even though its graduate has achieved
moderately the outcome on research preparation, besides improving the current training.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank UKM for providing the research grant (UKM-PTS-125-2010).

References

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