International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(6) June 20 I3, Pages: 355-362 11 TI JournalsInternational Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences ISSN2306-7276 1991 www.tijoumals.com Attitude of Stakeholders toward Monitoring and Evaluation of Students' Research Projects in Tertiary Education in Oyo State, Nigeria Adams O. U. Onuka I, Esther O. Durowoju 2 }.2 Institute of Education, University of Ibadan, !badan, Nigeria. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: This study investigated stakeholders' perceptions of monitoring and evaluation of students' Education research projects in some tertiary educational institutions in Oyo State. The population of the study Oyo State comprised all the tertiary institutions in Oyo state. Multistage sampling technique was adopted s follows: Random sampling technique was used to select one university and one college of education after classifying the institutions into universities and non-universities. From each of the institution, two faculties/schools were randomly selected while six departments were randomly chosen from each of the faculty/school. The Head of Department, 4 lecturers and 5 students were purposively selected from each department, making a total of24 HODs, 96 lecturers and 120 Ph. D students. Monitoring and Evaluation of Research Project Scale (MERPS) and Students' Perception of Lecturers Attitude towards Monitoring and Evaluation of Research Project Scale (SPLAMERPS) were employed to generate data. Cronbach alpha was used to determine the psychometric properties of these instruments validity coefficients were 0.76 and 0.79 respectively. Three research questions were addressed. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data Results revealed that all the HODs, 48% of the lecturers accepted M & E of students' research projects as a tool for quality assurance mechanism, while 52% of Lecturers opposed it. Recommendations were that: lecturers should be made to imbibe the M & E mechanism to effectively and efficiently monitor and evaluate students' research projects/theses. Lecturers should adhere strictly the benchmark set for monitoring and evaluation of students' project to ensure good quality. © 2013 Int. j. econ. manag. soc. sci. All rights reserved for TI Journals. Introduction In Nigeria, tertiary education refers post-secondary education given in the universities, colleges of education, polytechnics, monotechnics and those institutions offering correspondence courses (FRN, 2004: JO). The goals of tertiary institutions according to the Nigerian National Policy on Education document of 2004, states that tertiary institutions should be able to: a. contribute to national development through high level of relevant manpower training; b. develop and inculcate proper values for the survival of the individual and society; c. develop the intellectual capability of individuals to understand and appreciate their local and external environments; d. acquire both physical and intellectual skills which will enable individuals to be self-reliant and useful members of the society; e. promote and encourage scholarship and community service; f. fore and cement national unity; and g. promote national and international understanding and interaction It is expected that tertiary institutions should achieve the aforementioned goals through: a. teaching; b. research and development; c. virile staff development programs; d. generation and dissemination of knowledge; e. variety of modes of programs including full-time, part-time, block-release, day-release, sandwich etc.; f. access to training funds such as those provided by the Industrial Training Fund (lTF); g. Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES); h. maintenance ofminirnum educational standards through appropriate agencies; 1. inter-institutional co-operation j. Dedicated services to the community through extra-mural and extension services • Corresponding author. Email address:adarnonuka@yahoo.com UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 356 Adams O. U. Onuka and Esther O. Durowoju International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(6) June 2013 It is thus apparent from the above that the first two means of achieving the goals of tertiary education are teaching, research and development. According to the document, in the universities, research and teaching are expected to be relevant to the nation's development goals as well as inculcate community spirit in the students, hence the need for proper monitoring and evaluation of students' projects and theses. Abe (2012) asserts that monitoring and evaluation are mutually inclusive, supportive and interactive, yet they are not the same. According to him, the two words have been destined to be "life partners" in any successful project or program implementation. Monitoring is the regular scrutiny or inspection and recording of activities taking place in a project or program (cec.vcnbc.ca/cmp/modules/mon-wht.htm) . . Abe (2012) citing Brown (2000) defines monitoring as an intermittent (regular or irregular) series of observations in time, carried out to show the extent of compliance with a formulated standard or degree of deviation from an expected norm. Also citing Nabris (2002), Abe reports that monitoring represents on-going activities to track the progress been made by an entity or phenomenon against a planned task. On the other hand, evaluation entails giving significance conclusion or decision about an entity which could be an individual, program, project or event, based on sound analysis derivable from information on the object of evaluation. Onuka and Durowoju (2011) submit that evaluation is a systematic determination of merit, value, worth, significance or importance of something or someone using predetermined criteria. According to Leger and Walsworth-Bell in Reeve and Peerbhoy (2007), evaluation is a critical assessment which is based on objectivity of the degree to which a service or its component parts fulfils stated goals. Onuka and Onabamiro (20 I0) observe that supervisors were found to pay little attention to mentoring of their students in research and evaluation was almost non-existent, and that such development did not augur well for the high education system in Nigeria. They further aver that the development could be due to the fact lecturers are given more students to supervise than they can cope with as a result of high level of workload. The implication of these developments is that unless more either teachers or put formidable monitoring and evaluation machinery put in place to ensure that students' projectsltheses are properly monitored and evaluated. It is important to mention that monitoring and evaluation are vital tools needed to assure quality in students' projects or theses. In every tertiary institution, students are assigned to supervisors who are to guide, monitor and evaluate students' projects or theses right from the planning stage through the implementation and defense stage. From experience there have been cases where some research students will come out of the defense room with tears on their faces because they were asked to represent their thesis/projects or awarded a lower degree. The causes of the problem could be one or more of the following: the candidate was not up to writing a doctorate the research was not sufficiently rigorous or was unoriginal, or the topic was wrongly conceived poor structuring of a argument poor presentation and an inadequate bibliography or references (Source: Olayinka, Agbaje, Alonge, Ekpenyong, Gbadegesin, Isiugo-Abanihe, Oriaku, Raji-Oyelade, and Taiwo, 2005) In the real sense of it, the candidate or student is not supposed to take sole responsibility for his failure. The responsibility of unsuccessful research work should be shared between the candidate and his supervisor. Olayinka, et al (2005) asserts that there have been cases of supervisors who saw their students once a year for ten minutes in the pubs. In such situation it is highly impossible to establish and maintain a positive relationship. It is not gainsaying to stress that a good relationship between the supervisor and supervisee is one of the most potent and lasting relationship that can ever be. Essentially to a large extent candidates rely on their supervisors to guide, monitor and evaluate their theses/projects. One of the duties of a supervisor is ability to judge and advice on the quality of his students' research projects. The onus lies on him to ensure that students' research work is good enough for a PhD and successfully achieve this goal it is expedient that supervisors should make themselves approachable to the students. Agu, Anyikwa and Odimegwu (2010) opined that approachability is an attitudinal concept. According to them, it involves making oneself available to provide support, care ad good guidance to another. Approachability can be described as ability of an individual to make himselflherself available, accessible, reachable, user-friendly and understandable. Mitchell and Stinson (2004) in Agu et al (2010) submit that approachability could be seen in terms of showing interest in student's academic development, making oneself available to students, adapting to the needs of students and giving students advise for their learning needs. Agu et al citing Wilson (1992) states that students often spoke of good relationship with teachers as a contributory factor in the success of their university education. Agu et al found in their study that education professors rated themselves as being highly approachable to their students while their students perceived them as moderately approachable. This perception was consistent among the undergraduates (in the regular program) and postgraduate students. One of the factors that could have contributed to education professors' inadequate approachability could be the nature of their duties and workloads which appeared to exceed what was obtained in similar institution around the world. Another factor is lack of proper time management. Some studies have shown that lack of proper time management inhibits effective actualization of individual and organizational goals and objectives. Zikmund, William, Middlemist and Denni (1995) in Osei-Amankwah (2010) view time management as effective and efficient UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Attitude of Stakeholders toward Monitoring and Evaluation of Students' Research Projects in Tertiary Education in Oyo State, Nigeria 357 International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(6) June 201l integration and co-ordination of time to achieve desired objective. According to them, effectiveness is the degree to which goals are being achieved and with proper time management school heads will realize that they have more time than they need and can achieve more with what may be considered a limited time. To corroborate this, Onuka (2010) & (2012) opines that time management is the process whereby people spend their working days through a proper allocation of their time vis-a-vis the content of their job in such a way that no element of his hob gains more time than is necessary, at the expense of the other elements of the job. He further stressed that no Head of department or lecturer is effective if he does not plan and utilize his time very welI as welI as evaluate the use of his time constantly to ensure that deviation is minimized and ultimately eliminated completely, in order to reach optimal productivity in terms of achieving institutional/organizational objectives. In a nutshell, time management involves ability of a lecturer to carefully harmonize personal, institutional and students' goals and come up with realistic and desirable goals that are achievable within stipulated time and being able to fully accomplish those goals/objectives as at when due. It is pertinent to say, that from experience, most often Head of departments and lecturers do complain that they do not have enough time to attend to their research students due to heavy workload. One of the resultant effects of this is that research students are not properly mentored. It is expected that in the course of monitoring and evaluating students' research projects, students are guided and inducted into the act of research writing which will eventually prepare them for rigorous academic work especially for those who aspire to become academia. Mentoring is a process through which a person, usually learner or beginner is guided and inducted into a profession or institution to progress with positive results not just for the individual's benefit (Barkham, 2005; Ehrich, Hansford & Tennent, 2004 in Obaapanin, 2010) but also for their organization. In the academic setting, research students are to be mentored by their supervisors to enable them understand and imbibe research culture in term of choosing research topics, writing research proposal, implementation of research projects, writing of research report, disseminating of research fmdings through publication. Obaapanin (2010) found in his study that some of the challenges of mentoring are unavailability of mentors during scheduled periods, mentors not in the same field of study as mentee, and lack of effective communication between mentees and the Gender Directorate. Furthermore, Esia-Donkoh (2010) found in his study that the challenges faced by the mentees include poor interpersonal relationship with some ofthe head teachers and teachers of partner schools. It is essential to say that effective monitoring and evaluation of students' research project could engender effective mentoring of students. In view of the foregoing, this study investigated the attitude of HODs and lecturers toward effective monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects as well as the perceptions of students about the attitude of their lecturers or supervisors with regards to monitoring and evaluation of their research projects. Research questions In this study, four research questions were generated and tested at significance level of 0.05 1. Is there any difference between the anticipated attitude of lecturers towards monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the perceived attitude in that regard? 2. Is there any difference between the anticipated attitude of HODs towards monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the perceived attitude in that regard? 3. a. What is the perception of students towards the attitude oflecturers toward monitoring of research projects? b. What is the perception of students towards the attitude of lecturers toward evaluation of research projects? 4. What is the relationship between lecturers' attitude toward monitoring and evaluation of research and students' perception of lecturers' attitude to monitoring and evaluation of research projects? Methodology The study design is a survey research adopting ex-post facto procedure to collect the data. Population, Sampling and Sample The population of the study comprised all the tertiary institutions in Oyo state. Multistage sampling technique was adopted as folIows: Tertiary institutions classified into universities and non-universities. Random sampling technique was then used to select one university and one college of education. Furthermore, from each of the selected institutions, two faculties/schools (Education and Science) were randomly selected while 6 departments were randomly chosen from each of the two sampled faculties/schools. The Head of Department, 4 lecturers and 5 students were purposively chosen from each department, making a total of 24 HODs, 96 lecturers and 120 Ph.D students. UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 358 Adams O. U. Onuka and Esther O. Durowoju International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(6) June 2013 Instrumentation Two instruments were designed to generate data. There were I. Monitoring and Evaluation of Research Project Scale (MERPS) 2. Students' Perception of Lecturers Attitude toward Monitoring and Evaluation of Research Project Scale (SPLAMERPS) The teachers' instrument used for this study was named Monitoring and Evaluation of Research Project Scale (MERPS) which was designed and validated by the researchers. The instrument was made up of three sections: section A elicited information about the background of the respondents, section B contains elicited information about HODs' attitude to monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects supervised by their lecturers while section C elicited information on lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluation of their students' research projects. Cronbach alpha and content validity index were used to determine the psychometric properties of the instrument giving a reliability coefficient of 0.76 and validity index of 0.83 respectively. The Students' Perception of Lecturers Attitude toward Monitoring and Evaluation of Research Project Scale (SPLAMERPS) was developed by the researchers to elicit information on students' perception of their lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluating their research projects. The instruments consist of three sections. Section A comprises of information that elicited the background of the respondents, section B elicited information students' perception of lecturers' attitude toward monitoring of research projects while section C solicited information on students' perception of lecturers' attitude toward evaluation of students' research works. The psychometric property of the instrument was determined using Cronbach alpha which resulted to a reliability coefficient of 0.79 while the content validity was determined using Content Validity Index which result to 0.74. The items were scored as follows: Strongly Agree = 4, Agree = 3, Disagree =2, strongly Disagree = I Data Collection Procedure Using trained two research assistants, one each for each institution, the instruments were administered on the relevant participants to collect data in the selected university and College of Education. Data Analysis Data were collated, scored and analyzed using descriptive, chi square and correlation statistics. Results The results in table I revealed that there is a significant difference between the anticipated attitude of lecturers toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the actual attitude. The results in table 2 revealed that there is a significant difference between the expected attitude of HODs toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the actual attitude. As shown in table 3a, 43% of the respondents agreed that their supervisors assigned research topics to them, 70% agreed that their supervisors allowed them to choose their research topics while 61% do not agreed that themselves and their supervisors choose their research topics together. 48% of the students agreed that their supervisor do guide them on how to write research project while 52% disagreed. 65% do not agree that their supervisor usually keep appointment with me and 5% agreed that their supervisors usually organizes academic /research retreat for them. 95% of the respondents did not agree that their supervisor usually organize academic/research retreat for his students to enable him monitor their seminar presentations before the day of their examination. From the responses, it is obvious that attitude of most of the lecturers toward monitoring of their students' research projects was not encouraging. From table 3b, only 45% of the respondents agreed that their supervisor gives them opportunity to freely ask questions on my research project while 55% disagreed. 66% of the students did not agree that their supervisor do allow them to present their research projects to their colleague for evaluation but 34% agreed. 34% of the respondents agreed that their supervisors allow them to present their research projects to his colleagues for evaluation. Furthermore, 95% of the respondents did not agree that their supervisor usually organizes academic/research retreat for his students to enable him evaluate their research works while 5% of them agreed. 60% out of the respondents also did not support the fact that their supervisors always write his comments on paper for them to make necessary corrections. From the responses above, it is apparent that most ofthe lecturers did not evaluate their students' research projects as expected of them. The finding unveiled that is a significant relationship between lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluation of students' research and students' perception oflecturers' attitude to monitoring and evaluation of research projects. UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Attitude of Stakeholders toward Monitoring and Evaluation of Students' Research Projects in Tertiary Education in Oyo State, Nigeria 359 International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(6) June 2013 Table 1. Difference between the anticipated attitude of lecturers toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the actual attitude Responses Items Total Xl Sig NTM RTM OTM ATM Item I Actual II 48 31 6 96 Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Item2 Actual II 25 50 10 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Item3 Actual 14 50 31 I 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Item4 Actual 3 63 20 10 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Item5 Actual 0 79 14 3 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Item6 Actual 0 69 15 12 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Item7 Actual 24 40 18 14 96 294.56 0.00Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 ItemS Actual 24 25 47 0 96 Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Item9 Actual 3 31 59 3 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Item 10 Actual 12 29 52 3 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Itemll Actual 20 57 15 4 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Iteml2 Actual 20 57 19 0 96Anticipated 11.8 47.8 30.9 5.5 96.0 Total Actual 142 573 371 66 1152Anticipated 142.0 573.0 371.0 66.0 1152.0 Table 2. Difference between the anticipated attitude of HODs towards monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the actual attitude Responses Items Total Xl Sig NTM RTM OTM ATM Item I Actual 9 7 8 0 24 Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Item2 Actual 6 5 13 0 24Anticipated. 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Item3 Actual 10 5 7 2 24Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Item4 Actual 9 10 2 3 24Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Item5 Actual 7 8 2 3 24Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Item6 Actual 6 8 5 5 24 294.56 0.00Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Item7 Actual 8 5 5 6 24 Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 ItemS Actual 8 5 3 8 24Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Item9 Actual 5 II 6 2 24Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Item 10 Actual 1 14 8 0 24Anticipated 6.9 7.8 6.0 3.3 24.0 Total Actual 69 78 60 33 24Anticipated 142.0 573.0 371.0 66.0 240.0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 360 Adams O. U. Onuka and Esther O. Durowoju International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(6) June 2013 Table 3a. Students' perception of the attitude of lecturers towards monitoring of students' research projects SINO DESCRIPTION %A %D I My supervisor assign a research topic to me 43 57 2 My supervisor allows me to choose a research topic 70 30 3 My supervisor and I choose my research topic together 39 61 4 My supervisor usually guides me on how to write research 48 52 5 My supervisor usually keep appointment with me 35 65 6 Lecturing activities and institutions assignments do not give my supervisor opportunities to monitor my research 65 35 project 7 My supervisor usually organises academic/research retreat for his students to enable him monitor their seminar 05 95 presentations before the day of the examination 8 My supervisor usually gives me deadlines for submission of my research work 30 70 Table 3b. Students' perception of the attitude of lecturers towards evaluation of students' research projects SINO DESCRIPTION "/c,A %D I My supervisor gives me opportunity to freely ask questions on my research project 45 55 2 My supervisor allows me to present my research project to his students to evaluate 34 66 3 My supervisor allows me to present my research project to his colleagues to evaluate 34 66 4 My supervisor usually communicates with me both online and through GSM on my research work 30 70 5 My supervisor always ensure that my research project is in consonance with the particular requirements 64 36 6 My supervisor is usually available to give me guidance and advice on my research project after evaluating my 46 54 research proj ect 7 Lecturing activities and institutions assignments do not give my supervisor opportunities to evaluate my research 65 35 project 8 My supervisor usually organises academic/research retreat for his students to enable him evaluate their research work 05 95 9 After evaluating my research work my supervisor always write his comments on paper for me to make necessary 40 60 corrections 10 After evaluating my research work my supervisor always discuss his observation with me and allows me to ask 45 55 questions II Most times am afraid to approach my supervisor as regard my research work 40 60 Table 4. Relationship between lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluation of students' research and students' perception of lecturers' attitude to monitoring and evaluation of research projects Variables N x SD R Sig . Attitude oflecturers toward monitoring and evaluation 96 40.05 24.08 .524(*) .041 Students' perception of lecturers attitude to monitoring and Evaluation 96 66.60 39.347 Discussion The result in table 1 revealed that there is a significant difference between the anticipated attitude of lecturers toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the actual attitude. This implies that the attitude of lecturers toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research project is quite different from what is expected of them. To support this finding Olayinka, Agbaje, Alonge, Ekpenyong, Gbadegesin, Ifeoma, Oriaku, Raji-Oyelade, and Taiwo (2005) asserted that there have been cases of supervisors who saw their students once a year for ten minutes in the pub. However, this result contradicts the report made by Abe (2012) that monitoring represents on-going activities to track the progress been made by an entity or phenomenon against a planned task. The result is also not in consonant with the Brown (2000) who asserts that monitoring as an intermittent (regular or irregular) series of observations in time, carried out to show the extent of compliance with a formulated standard or degree of deviation from an expected norm. Based on the result, it is evident that the attitude of the lecturers toward monitoring and evaluation of their students' research projects fall below expectation. The poor attitude of lecturers towards monitoring and evaluation of their students' research projects has great implications on the quality of research works produced by students. The low attitude could be attributed to lack of time management by the lecturers (Onuka, 2012; Zikmund, William, Middlemist and Denni (1995) in Osei-Amankwah(2010), some of the lecturers engage in other or activities order than their primary assignments which are teaching, research and mentoring of research students (Onuka and Onabamiro, 2010). The resultant effect of these include poor mentoring ofresearch students, lack of positive supervisor-student relationship, production of low quality research projects/thesis, students not being able to defend their research works, students inability to finish their academic program at the stipulated time due to delay in completion of research projects as well as failure of research students to mentor others after the completion of their research projects. UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Attitude of Stakeholders toward Monitoring and Evaluation of Students' Research Projects in Tertiary Education in Oyo State, Nigeria 361 International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(6) June 2013 The result as shown in table 2 depicts that there is a significant difference between the expected attitude of HODs toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and their actual attitude towards. This entails that the attitude of Head of departments toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research project is at variance with the desirable outcome. This result negates the assertion that monitoring is the regular scrutiny or inspection and recording of activities taking place in a project or program (Wikipedia, not dated). From the result, it is imperative to state that the attitude of HOD with regard to lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects is not encouraging. The reasons for HODs inability to effective monitor and evaluate the degree of lecturers' involvements in the supervision of their supervisees cannot be farfetched. It is a known fact that most of the Head of Departments are shouldered with lots of obligations; the truth is that most times the HODs lack the ability to effectively and efficiently manage their time. Most times some HODs do not sanction lecturers who failed to monitor and evaluate their students' projects as expected, in the same vein defaulting students are not equally sanction. The finding in table 3a and 3b showed that most of the research students perceived that their lecturers do not monitor and evaluate their research projects as expected of them. The result is in agreement with Olayinka, et al (2005) who stated that there have been cases of supervisors who saw their students once a year for ten minutes in the pubs. In such situation it is highly impossible to establish and maintain a positive relationship. The result is also in support of Agu et al (2010) who found in their study that students perceived their supervisors some whom are professors as moderately approachable. The implication of this is that most of the students encounter problem in writing their research projects as a result of poor attitude of their supervisor toward monitoring and evaluation of their works. The reasons for the poor attitude of supervisors toward the monitoring and evaluation of their students' research work could be as a result of work load, inapproachability and unfriendly attitude towards their supervisees. The result in table 4 confirmed that is a significant relationship between lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluation of students' research and students' perception of lecturers' attitude to monitoring and evaluation of research projects. This finding contradict that of Agu et al (2010) who revealed that education professors rated themselves as being highly approachable to their students while their students perceived them as moderately approachable. This implies that there is a connection between the perception of students about their lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluation of their research projects and the actual attitude of their lecturers towards their research projects. This is an indication that the perception of the students about their lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluation of their research work is poor or low. This account for inability of most students to establish and maintain a positive relationship with their lectures, most of the students do not feel free to discuss their research works with their supervisors while on the other hand they could freely discuss with other lecturer who is friendly. Also some lecturers do show personal interest in the welfare of their research students. Conclusion This study revealed that there is a significant difference between the anticipated attitude of lecturers toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the actual attitude. Also, it was discovered that there is a significant difference between the expected attitude of HODs toward monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and the actual attitude. Finally, it was apparent that most of the HODs and lecturers do not monitor and evaluate their students' research projects as expected of them and that there was a significant relationship between lecturers' attitude towards monitoring and evaluation of students' research and students' perception of lecturers' attitude to monitoring and evaluation of research projects. The implication of the study would mean that Heads of Department and lecturers should ensure effective and efficient monitoring and evaluation of students' research projects and that they should establish cordial relationship with their supervisees. Also, they should collaborate with all other researchers/lecturers to jointly supervise the research works of their students. Recommendations Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made: • Workshops on monitoring and evaluation of students' projects should be organized for HODs and lectures by various higher institutions. • HODs and lecturers should be made to attend trainings, workshops and conferences on research writing. • HODs and lecturers should establish and maintain positive supervisor-supervisee relationship in order to promote healthy relationship between them. • HODs and lecturers should acquaint themselves with the criteria for assessing research works/projects. • HODs should set up monitoring and evaluation committee that will ensure that both the supervisor and supervisee met up to the desirable standard set for research work in terms of quality and time frame for completion of research projects. • Research supervisors should organize academic/research retreat for their students so as to promote team work among the supervisees and to enable research students finish their research work to time. 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