Perception of Students and Lecturers on Students Centered Learning (SCL) in the College of Nursing and Midwifery Gombe Northern Nigeria

Topmost among the 21st century innovations in pedagogy is the introduction of the constructivist approach in which students are afforded wide latitude of involvement in constructing, reconstructing and ascending a scaffold of knowledge based on student centered learning (SCL) approach. This study aimed to assess the perception of SCL introduced as a form of teaching and learning among students and lecturers in the College of Nursing and Midwifery, Gombe State, Nigeria. Employing a descriptive cross sectional study design and a purposive sampling technique, a sample of 117 students and 24 lecturers were drawn. Using an adapted SCL questionnaire, data collection was done from November to December, 2020 and was analyzed using SPSS (IBM) version 23 and result presented as means and percentages, while Pearson correlation and one-way ANOVA was used to present inferential statistics results. All statistical findings were considered significant at p≥0.05. Cronbach’s alpha reliability score of at least 7.0 was achieved within each set of variables considered. Of the eight SCL components assessed, the most highly rated were role of lecturers (3.99±0.7) and role of students (3.53±0.6) while the least rated were obstacles (2.91±0.9) and learning outcomes (2.95±1.1). Three major obstacles to SCL identified in the study include: “in ability to cover the syllabus using SCL approaches” (3.04±1.4); “lack of infrastructure for SCL in my school” (3.87±1.1) and; “lack of guidelines for the SCL approach in my school” (3.13±1.3). The study findings conclude that, despite the good perception of SCL in the college there are limitations to its full adoption. Therefore, it is recommended that online discussions, training of staff and provision of measures to ensure content coverage using SCL, provision of critical infrastructure and guidelines for SCL be prioritized by the management and other stakeholders.