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Despite the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Charles Okigbo, the Pioneer Register of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON/ARCON), and other researchers were on hand to facilitate the second edition of the Jacksonites Webinar Series .
The Knowledge Center’s six-part Webinar Series on Mixed Methods Research (MMR) is designed for postgraduate communication students in Nigeria as well as professionals with an interest in research.
Okigbo, a former Senior Lecturer at UNN and now Emeritus Professor of Strategic Communication in the United States⅞, explained the need to use qualitative methods in mixed methods projects, while Nuhu Gapsiso of the University of Maiduguri illustrated the different ways to conduct qualitative data analysis.
Mustafa Mallam of Bayero University provided three compelling examples of qualitative and mixed methods applications in a recent study of BUK undergraduate dissertations.
One of his examples comes from Balarabe Maikaba’s 2010 dissertation titled ‘Mass Communication Research in Nigerian Universities (1980 – 2006): A Theme and Trend Analysis’.
This research has shown that different departments of mass communication reflect different curricular emphases, despite efforts by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to promote uniformity across all programmes. UNILAG and BUK emphasized broadcasting while UNN showed a clear interest in print journalism.
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Bellarmine Ezuma from Murray State University in the USA explained the philosophical underpinnings of qualitative methods, gave examples from his research in the USA, Nigeria and South Africa and concluded by emphasizing that qualitative and quantitative methods are equally valuable depending on the aims of our research.
She drew attention to the valuable use of qualitative approaches in research situations that require deeper understanding, especially when we need to explain social reality constructed through human interaction.
Ezumah encouraged participants to be receptive to new computer tools such as Excel, which is not complicated and is available for free in some Microsoft Office suites.
Based on his doctoral dissertation on newspaper coverage of maternal health issues, Raheemat Adeniran of Lagos State University sympathized with the need for quantitative researchers to address issues with the use of human subjects in research.
She also illustrates her flexibility in using multiple qualitative research methods with her study of Nigerian journalists’ experiences with fact-checking training.
She has used thematic analysis, in-depth personal interviews and qualitative content analysis in her various research engagements.
The presentations generated a lot of comments and questions from more than 65 attendees, who were promised unlimited access to the full set of slides immediately after the webinar.
These series of special training and demonstration webinars are the brainchild of members of the UNN Mass Communication Association with Chinedu Mba, a professor at Algonquin College, Ottawa, Canada as the coordinator, and Chuks Enwerem of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) as the moderator .
Next month’s topic is Quantitative Research with Kayode Mustapha Lambe, Head of Department of Mass Communication, University of Ilorin as special guest and Idowu Sobowale (ex-UNILAG) as guest speaker.
As the ASUU strike enters its sixth month with no end in sight, postgraduate students in communication and related disciplines can benefit from this utilitarian continuing education and capacity building instructional package from the UNN Mass Communication Association.
Marcel Mbamalu, UNN Mass Communication Graduate and Publisher/Editor-in-Chief at Prime Business Africa, noted in his opening remarks at this webinar that serious students cannot continue to wait indefinitely for the strike to end, but must look for ways to build bridges between ‘city and dress’ by continuing to learn. At the same time, the strike continues and they also practice what they have learned in the real world to tackle data problems through applied action research, using qualitative and quantitative methods as appropriate.
A partner of the Jacksonites Professional Development Series (JPDS) – an initiative under the auspices of members of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) Mass Communication Alumni Association known as Jacksonites, the Knowledge Hub sessions are a sustainable endeavor to provide monthly continuing education mixed methods learning for research for the benefit of all interested researchers in Nigerian universities.
Previous sessions in the webinar series have covered an overview of mixed methods approaches and applications of action research in addressing pressing social issues.
This month’s session, held recently, covered qualitative research methods and was covered by five lecturers with extensive research experience in the US and Nigeria.
More than 65 participants from across the country attended to listen to the presentations and interact with the panelists.
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