Furniture Construction Skill Gap Analysis Among Technical College Teachers in Zamfara and Katsina States, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the skill gap of furniture construction teachers in Zamfara and Katsina State, Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted for the study. A population of 47 furniture construction teachers was studied. Because of the small size of the population, no sampling was done. Three research questions were answered and one hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. Structured questionnaire was used to gather data from 47 woodwork furniture construction teachers. Mean and standard deviations were used to answer the research questions while t - test statistics was used to test the null hypothesis using the IBM SPSS version 20. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to determine reliability coefficient of the instrument using test retest method. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was found to be 0.89. The instrument was administered on the respondents by the researcher with the help of six research assistants (three in Zamfara and three in Katsina state respectively). The findings of the study revealed that the respondents require skills in ability to hold saw with the fore finger straight out on one side of the handle, ability to follow step by step method in preparing a piece of wood, setting sliding bevel when marking out dovetail joint and selection of the right adhesive according to the purpose and type of wood and the amount of force that should be applied when using adhesives. It was recommended that government should provide avenue for teachers of furniture construction to go for further training in modern technology in furniture construction, the identified skills required by teachers of furniture construction should form the basis for the up-skilling workshop training to be organized as an in-house training. Teachers of furniture construction should work with industries for collaboration in training and emphasis should be attached to practical examination in the curriculum for teachers of furniture construction in order to instill in the learners, the importance of practical exercise for skill acquisition.