Applicability of the Student Course Experience Questionnaire (SCEQ) in an African Context: The Case of Nigerian Universities

Abstract

Student's perceptions surveys of university course experiences and learning environments has been part of quality evaluation in higher education in the western world, especially Australia and UK for the purpose of accountability, learning improvements or both. In Africa, particularly in Nigeria, it has not been so. Therefore this article examines the factor structure of a modified student's course experience questionnaire (SCEQ) with Nigerian undergraduate students to determine its applicability in an African context and also to investigate the similarities and differences in student's perceptions across different variables. It is based on a survey of 3,400 undergraduate students of all levels from five degree courses in faculty of sciences of 17 universities in Nigeria. Findings from exploratory factor analysis supports the scale structure of the nine subscales of a modified version of SCEQ (good teaching, clear goals, course level materials & resources, emphasis on independence, appropriate workload, appropriate assessment, surface learning strategy, deep learning strategy and generic skills). This study could provide a basis for gender, degree courses, level of study, cross university, and international benchmarking. While there was variation of student's perception across many variables, students who perceived their courses and learning environment most favorably adopted a deep learning strategy, acquired better generic skills and were most satisfied with their courses as shown by correlation analysis. This information could be useful in informing the design of degree course-specific programs.