Report on the Level of General Knowledge Among Students of Nottingham University Malaysia Campus

Presented by:

Name: Wisdom Iheukwumere Eleba

Supervised by: Ms Alison Abraham

Abstract

The aims of the survey are to investigate the level of general knowledge among local and international students studying in Nottingham University Malaysia campus, and to investigate differences in the level of knowledge among students of Nottingham university studying in different faculties which include: Engineering, Bioscience, and Business; and among students from various regions studying in the university of Nottingham.

These aims were realised by undertaking a survey of the different regions within the campus. The survey is the first of its kind to specifically target inter-regional comparative study on level of general knowledge among students of different nationalities.

The survey was conducted by means of questionnaire. The questionnaire covered different aspects of the knowledge domain and research process; including questions from the following subject areas: geography, economy, history, science, sports and entertainments.

The result defies the general held opinion and expectation that students in business are highly knowledgeable in economics, as that is their core area of specialization. Such could also be argued on the average score of Biosciences students on science domain of knowledge.

There are only marginal significant differences in the overall knowledge score of students from the different regions, as each region compensated for their low scores with their scores on other knowledge domain where they have comparative advantage. From the above result, this report has fulfilled his aims and objectives

Introduction

For centuries, people have been very keen in knowing whether there are differences in the level of knowledge among various races. This has been a controversial issue which has generated a lot of conflicting opinions, One of the earliest researchers to venture into such comparative research was ‘Alfred Binet' and other researchers who had particular interest in studying intelligence as a construct. However, their findings have generated lots of interest and have prompted further researches on nature-nurture controversy in trying to understand the basis of intelligence and knowledge. Another researcher who have drawn so much attention to differences in psychological and biological endowment is ‘Geert Hofstede' in his cross-cultural study albeit limited to some domains of interest such as Masculinity/Femininity; Risk/Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism/Collectivism, Power distance etc cross-cultural differences. In nutshell, this survey study is concerned about comparing students' general knowledge in relation to their regions and field of study. The study is intended to draw inference based on the analysis of the response of the sample population drawn from University of Nottingham, Malaysia campus students and recommendation will be made on how to foster general knowledge in students.

It is designed to encourage students who are studying in a particular area of the world or discipline to acquire broader and general knowledge to be able to have international focus especially with the compelling trend of globalization. This aptly implies that students are more than ever before challenged to posses ‘generalists' knowledge without necessarily compromising their ‘specialists' knowledge for example, Engineering, Bioscience and Business students, thereby placing their area or discipline in a broader, cross-cultural context relation to influences by trans-national, sometimes global dynamics and socio-cultural and early educational system.

Methodology

The study employed survey methods to assess student's general knowledge on five subject areas such as: history, economy, geography, science, sport and entertainments. The samples were randomly drawn from the University of Nottingham Malaysia students studying Foundations and Degree courses in Engineering, Biosciences and Business. The age of the respondents ranges from between 16 to 24, with majority of the respondents in the age range of 19-21 years.

Respondents were chosen randomly to fill up the questionnaire either at the spot or have it responded and returned within average time of 30 minutes later. Results were analyzed by regions (Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa) and by course of study (Engineering, Biosciences and Business), to enable the researchers test some certain assumption, and to compare the level of general knowledge among the students of Nottingham University. There are five researchers from Business Foundation Class who conducted the research and all contributed sizably in the course of the research.

Responses: A combined total of thirty (30) foundations, undergraduate and postgraduate students of Nottingham University responded to the questionnaire, which yields an overall response rate of 100%. A total of 30 questions were asked; 6 per section which comprises of History, Geography, Science, Economics and Sports & Entertainment. Some questions were structured in such a way that there is only one correct answer from the options whereas others are open ended questions but with a definite (correct) answer to such questions. Examples of questioned posed in the questionnaire in each of the categories include: for Economics- the question asked was that; where is the most expensive country to live in terms of living cost? For History- ‘who is the most infamous dictator that led to the bombing of West Germany? For Geography-‘which country is most populated? For sports and entertainment-"Which team did the formal world player of the year zinedine zidane played for in his carrier? For science-‘which of the following vitamins is abundant in citrus fruit?

Discussion of results

The analysis of the survey on general knowledge among the university of Nottingham Malaysia campus students, drawn from three faculties (Engineering, Business and Biosciences) as presented in this study reveals the following pattern of general knowledge. The result of the survey was analyzed to compare the level of general knowledge among the students from the three faculties, and also among students from five different regions that made up the sample population of the study. The result indicated that there are significant differences among the various regions on their knowledge domains.Table 1: Comparison table of Students from Five Regions in Asia and Africa

The result in the Table 1 above showed that students from Southeast Asian scored the highest of 80%, Southern Africa (77%) and East Africa(77%) posses higher historical knowledge than their counterparts from West Africa which scored 62% and South Asia (62%). Similar trend is depicted on knowledge of geography, where Southeast Asia, East Africa and South Africa both had average score of 62% on the sub scale of geography knowledge; well ahead of the lagging regions: south Asia (46%) and West Africa (42%).

However, result on the contrary showed that south Asia has the highest knowledge on economics among other regions with total score of 74%, West Africa (50%), Southern Africa (42%), East Africa (48%) and Southeast Asia (49%). On the related pattern, West Africa students showed impressive knowledge on science domain with a score of 60% ahead of other four regions, and closely followed by South Asia (58%), Southeast Asia (58%), South Africa (57%) and East Africa (52%).

Nevertheless, the result is interpreted with lots of caution as there are unequal representation sample from these regions, which may likely have moderating effect on the outcome of the result. Also, one observation that are readily deciphered from the result is that, there is only marginal significant differences in the overall knowledge score of students from these regions, as each region compensated for their low scores with their scores on other knowledge domain where they have comparative advantage.

Besides, the comparative analysis of scores across courses of study showed a somewhat similar pattern of knowledge specialization (see Table 2). Students from engineering disciplines scored outstandingly higher in Science (64%) well ahead of students from Business (57%) and Biosciences (52%). In a similar manner, students from Business discipline had score of 80% in history compared to their counterparts from Engineering (71%) and Biosciences (58%) and also in sports & entertainment (62%), closely followed by students from Engineering (61%) and trailed by students from Biosciences (58%), but lagged least in Economy and Geography knowledge domains.

Table 2: Comparison of the Students' score from the three fields of study

Finally, students from Biosciences had average score of 68% in Economy and well above students from other fields of study, Engineering (53%) and Business (46%). Similarly, each faculty compensated for their areas of weaknesses in general knowledge with areas they have competitive edge.However, the result defies the general held opinion and expectation that students in business are highly knowledgeable in economics, as that is their core area of specialization. Such could also be argued on the average score of Biosciences students on science domain of knowledge.

The result in Table 3 showed that students make more use of electronic media (internet and television) in acquiring new knowledge than print media (books and newspapers).the graph below shows how many respondents that uses electronic media as sources of knowledge compared to print media.

Table 3: Table showing preferred media choice for sourcing knowledge by students.

Implication of the study: Only small sample of University of Nottingham, students were used in the study and there were fairly represented. This hampers the generalization of the result and findings from the study. Besides, those that took the questionnaire home and returned it in a later time may have sourced the answer from friends or through internet, thus possibility of biases and errors in the study. The implication of this study is that students should be encouraged to acquire broader knowledge in other fields outside their subject of study, but should as a matter of requirement seek deeper knowledge in their area of specialization or field of study.

Conclusion

Based on the findings of the study, the researchers are concluding by proffering the following recommendations for improvement in general knowledge.

The university should improve its general study courses to expose students to broad range of knowledge.

The university should also invest more in digital (electronic) media in propagating knowledge than in print media such as books, and make it as widely available as possible.

For there are only marginal significant differences in the overall knowledge score of students from the different regions, as each region compensated for their low scores with their scores on other knowledge domain where they have comparative advantage, thus the result has fulfilled his aims and objectives by carrying out a comparative study among the students from different faculties and regions.

Recommendations for future Studies: The study has contributed to other scores of ethnographical, anthropological and cross-cultural researches on intelligence and knowledge and the researchers are hereby recommending that future study need to be undertaken with larger sample that should be systematically drawn from all the regions of interest to eliminate any potential of bias and to corroborate the findings of this study. Also, future study should look at gender differences in general knowledge among university students in University of Nottingham, Malaysia campus.

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