Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2021

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Social Work

Major Professor

William R. Nugent

Committee Members

Mary L. Held, Courtney Faber, Mitsunori Misawa

Abstract

Youth unemployment has been on the rise for many years in Nigeria. Despite the high number of youths enrolled in formal education in Nigeria and the number of graduates each year, job opportunities to absorb these graduates are few. TVET has been proposed as an educational intervention in reducing youth unemployment.

A systematic review revealed that the interventions aimed at reducing youth unemployment were pooled into four categories: the use of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in schools, the introduction of entrepreneurship education in schools, the engagement of public-private partnership (PPP), and career guidance counseling for students.

In designing a survey instrument that measures Nigerian youth’s perception and attitude towards Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), the domains of the Social Influence theory guided the drafting of items. From an initial 25-item item list, 21 items were selected. These selected items had a reliability of 0.825, with midrange item difficulty, variability, discrimination, and consistency scores.

A confirmatory factor analysis showed that all the 21 items in the scale loaded significantly on the latent constructs and the model fit of the items were adequate (CFI: 0.91, TLI: 0.90, SRMR: 0.049, RMSEA (90% CI): 0.090 (0.088 – 0.097)). The Multiple Indicator, Multiple Cause (MIMIC) analysis identified differential response by gender to parental willingness to enroll children in TVET and ethnic differences in the need for TVET in universities. The CFA of the MIMIC model yielded an improved model fit (CFI: 0.91, TLI: 0.90, SRMR: 0.045, RMSEA (90% CI): 0.079 (0.075 – 0.084)).

The TVET Attitude and Practice Scale (TAPS) instrument is a theoretically driven 21- item survey instrument that can be used to assess baseline youth's attitude and perception towards TVET, and aid in the design of interventions that will reduce youth unemployment.

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