INFLUENCE OF ACADEMIC MENTORING ON AGRICULTURE UNDERGRADUATES' ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES IN RIVERS STATE

C C Ifeanyi-obi; A F Maika

INFLUENCE OF ACADEMIC MENTORING ON AGRICULTURE UNDERGRADUATES' ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES IN RIVERS STATE

C C Ifeanyi-obi, A F Maika

Abstract

The study assessed influence of academic mentoring on agriculture undergraduate’s academic activities in Rivers State. Two-stage sampling procedure was used to select sample for the study. Data was collected with the aid of questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics namely percentages, frequency and mean. The result of the socio-economic characteristic of undergraduate students showed that there were more female students (75%) than male students (25%) with an average age of 25years.Only 10% applied to faculty of agriculture at entry while the other 90% were admitted into faculty of agriculture as a result of inability to secure admission in choice course (75%), change of mind (18), parents influence (1.9%) and the university choice of placement (6%). Majority, (92%) of the students has heard about mentoring but has moderate knowledge (66%) about it. Almost all the students (98%) agreed that it is necessary for students to have academic mentors and believe it is beneficial to their academic performance (99%). As regards effectiveness of academic mentoring in the universities, the students agreed that academic mentoring in the universities is not effective (=2.5). The major influence of academic mentoring on the agriculture students’ performance is that academic mentoring equips them to better tackle their academic challenges (=2.5) as well as get needed support for improvement in their academic activities (=2.5) while major challenges faced in academic mentoring includes lack of structure to checkmate excesses on both staff and students (= 3.3) and lack of reward system or incentives for successful mentoring relationship (= 3.3. There is therefore need to educate new students on the important role their course advisers play in their academic progress during their orientation into the school and faculty. This will help to increase their visits to their course adviser hence obtain proper guidance in the academic progress. Also, having a formal mentoring structure embedded in the school academic policy with defined reward system will go a long way in making the mentoring relationship more effective.

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