Author(s)

Margaret G. Kennedy^1*, Elsie Williams², Victoria Asodike³

¹International Secondary School, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
²Sports Institute of Rivers State Isaka, Okirika, Nigeria.
³Department of Educational Foundation, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Prevalence of anxiety in writing research report among graduate students in faculties of education in Nigeria, particularly Rivers State cannot be overemphasized; it has led to barriers in completing theses and dissertation. This is evident in the number of graduating students each year compared to the number admitted at the start of the programme. This study sought to investigate if there were indicators of the presence of anxiety in writing research report among graduate students. The study utilized the descriptive survey using a population of 392 graduate students for 2017/2018 academic session in all 5 departments of the faculty of education of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IAUE) Port Harcourt. Census sampling method was used to study the entire population. It is not certain if gender influences anxiety in writing research report. Thus the purpose of this study was to compare levels of anxiety in writing research report among male and female graduate students in IAUE one of the Universities in Rivers State. The outcome measure Research Writing Anxiety Rating Scale (RWARS) revealed that fear of library use and indifferent attitude of supervisors does not induce anxiety significantly but moderately among male and female graduate students but fear of statistics produced significant level of anxiety differently among male and female graduate students; female students were found to have higher levels of statistic anxiety than their male counterparts. Based on these finding it was recommended amongst others that lecturers with high level of competence and good teaching methods should be made to teach statistics at the graduate level.

Anxiety, Graduate Students, Report, Research, Writing

Kennedy, M. , Williams, E. and Asodike, V. (2020) Anxiety in Writing Research Report among Graduate Students in Ignatius Ajuru University, Faculty of Education, Rivers State, Nigeria. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 8, 127-140. doi: 10.4236/jss.2020.811013.