International Journal of Business Management and Administration Vol. 5(1), pp. 001-007, December 2016 ISSN 2327-3100 ©2016 Academe Research Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Status of quality supervision of postgraduate research and its influence on the rate of economic growth: A case of universities in Kenya

Veronicah Kaluyu

School of Business and Administration Africa Nazarene University-Nairobi, Kenya. E-mail: veroanuiodl@gmail.com.

Accepted 24 November, 2016

Abstract

This study sought to find out the quality processes in supervision of postgraduate student’s research in public and private universities in Kenya. The researcher sought to establish the influence of quality research supervisory practices on economic growth. Data was gathered through a questionnaire using a sample of 381 randomly selected postgraduate students and 66 coordinators of postgraduate studies. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data, while multiple regressions were used to test hypothesis. All calculations were done at confidence level of 0.7 and alpha level of 0.05.The study results indicate that the strongest predictor of the rate of economic growth was supervision training (R² = 0.309, followed by supervision model (R² = 0.622), use of mentorship model (0.425) and finally the use of supervision schedules (R² = 0.755). In the stepwise regression analysis, the beta coefficients for the predicted model shows that supervision training has highest impact (b=0.272), next was supervision monitoring (b = 0.210) followed by use of mentorship model with (b=0.172) while use of supervision schedules had least effect (b = 0.067) on the rate of economic growth. Implications and recommendations are included in the study.

Key words: Postgraduate research, supervision, quality, economic growth.