GRASAG-UEW Holds Research Seminar for Postgraduate Students

As part of their activities for the 2021 academic year, the Graduate Students Association of Ghana (GRASAG), University of Education, Winneba (UEW), organised a research seminar under the theme: “Critical Issues in Conducting Educational Research” for its members.

The seminar, which took place on Wednesday, 9th June, 2021, at Central Campus, primarily aimed at helping members appreciate the core issues in conducting research. 

The seminar also discussed in detail mind-boggling topics such as: “Research problem, Methodology, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Sampling Method, Research Design, Positivism, Literature Review and many more. 

Dr. Yayra Dzakadzie

The presentations were facilitated by two resource persons, the Head of Department (HoD), Early Childhood Education, Dr. Yayra Dzakadzie and Graduate Coordinator, Department of Educational Administration and Management, Dr. Hinneh Kusi.

Presenting at the seminar, Dr. Dzakadzie told participants that a positivist researcher aims to discover a set of laws that can be used to predict general patterns of behaviour. He further stated that a researcher ought to always check his or her topic back and forth to determine whether the topics are in line with what they are doing. 

Some graduate students who attended the seminar

He urged participants to be curious and read widely on their literature to formulate a directional hypothesis. “If you read your literature very well, you should formulate your research questions and hypothesis from the literature. In coming out with the research questions in quantitative research, you must also be clear about the variables of interest.”  

The second facilitator, Dr. Kusi remarked that as researchers, the problem of study should be of great interest to the researcher and be significant to others as well, especially those in the field in which they are conducting the study.

Dr. Hinneh Kusi giving counsel to students to gather the relevant information needed for the research work

 “As a researcher, you should be able to gather the relevant information for the research work. It is important that you make sure access to the target population be granted when choosing a problem,” he noted. 

In his closing address, Professor of Mathematics, UEW, Prof. Samuel Asiedu-Addo, congratulated the executives of GRASAG for such a wonderful programme. “I think it is very important for graduate students to get used to seminars and conferences that will help to shape their work.” 

Prof. Samuel Asiedu-Addo

He further advised young lecturers not to accept to answer students who ask questions about their research topics, whether it is right or wrong because there is nothing like a wrong topic adding, it only depends on the approach.

The seminar was chaired by the Vice-Dean, School of Graduate Studies, UEW, Prof. Charles Assuah. Among GRASAG-UEW executives present were the President, Mr. Enoch Ansah; Vice-President, Mr. Salifu Abdul-Bachi; Secretary, Mr. Seth Badu; Public Relations Officer, Mr. Anthony Woode-Eshun; Chief Justice, His Lordship, Ambrose Darko; Treasurer, Ms. Gifty Yeboah and Gender Commissioner, Ms. Abiba Asoma.