Abstract
The onslaught of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) requires employees to have a more complex combination of skills—the 21st century skills—than in the past. The corporate world expects employees to amass these skills from the education system, especially through acquisition of postgraduate qualifications. However, acquiring these skills presents challenges to the students as institutions rarely offer these skills at that level. Low competence in these skills, coupled with work-life imbalance, hampers research engagement and hence progress and completion among postgraduate students. In essence, a lack of the 4IR skills is a disabling reality for postgraduate research students. This chapter presents a desk-based conceptual review of the disabling effects of work-life imbalance and inadequate 4IR skills on postgraduate students' research engagement and general academic progress. Implications for policy and practice include routine provision of hands-on experiences on the 21st century research skills and work-life balance in order to step up their research progress.
TopIntroduction
The UN, in the 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has set the development agenda for the first half of the 21st century. These strongly emphasise the role of postgraduate education in socioeconomic transformation. Postgraduate education constitutes a particular investment, whether personal or national, in human capital (Kearney, 2008). The overall objective of postgraduate education is to prepare highly skilled citizens and professionals able to address specific issues in national and globalised society. The wealth drawn from individuals and their talents can provide a basis for finding viable solutions to the issues of sustainable human development – particularly in poverty reduction, wide access to health care, education for all, population, good governance, equitable arrangements for globalised economic trends, and trade patterns.
However, in many African countries, postgraduate students encounter a series of internal inefficiencies as reflected by high dropout rates, high repetition or retake rates, longer completion times, low graduation rates, and to a lesser extent transfer between programmes (Farrar, 2013; Pillay, 2010). These inefficiencies are coupled with poor quality of outputs including low scores in course work, examinations, and research work. Such progress deficiencies are attributable to various programme, environmental, and student quality factors, although many disciplinary and other complex factors too contribute to these outcomes. One serious student quality factor is the disability status of the student, that is, whether the student has any physical or mental health issue that grossly impairs their academic functionality.
Among the salient issues that affect student performance at postgraduate level is work-life balance (Allen, Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2004). Work-life balance refers to the extent to which a postgraduate student can effectively manage multiple responsibilities at work, at home, and in other aspects of life (Ahmad, 2008). It should be noted that work-life balance is a function of one’s internal psychological state as well as external factors. The internal component depends on whether the person has an underlying disability or not; those who are physically and/or mentally ill are more likely than the “normal” peers to exhibit low work-life balance or conversely high work-life imbalance. The work-life balance concept has three main constructs: (a) work place support, (b) work interference with personal life, and (c) personal life interference with work (Banu & Duraipandian, 2014). A proper balance in handling the simultaneous demands on the student would determine how he or she engages in academic demands such as research.
In the event where the students’ simultaneous involvement in family, work, study, social, and personal life is stressful, their work-life balance is low. The resultant work-life imbalance, coupled with low proficiency in the 4IR skills, is most likely a notable disabling cause of student research engagement at higher degrees. The integration theory of work-life balance (Clark, 2000) provides a good grounding for explaining these dynamics. According to the theory, students will establish and transfer emotions, attitudes, skills, and behaviours between their work life, family life, study life, and personal life. This implies that students require a healthy system of flexible and permeable boundaries between family-, work-, and community-life domains to pursue their programmes with utmost efficiency. When students experience satisfaction and achievement in one domain, their satisfaction and achievement in the other domains is enhanced.
Conversely, when students experience difficulties and depression in one domain; they are likely to transfer the same emotions in other domains (Xu, 2009). This implies that postgraduate students who have a high work-life balance will have high research engagement. The reverse is expected to be true for students with low work-life balance. Whereas a student may have a high work-life balance, research skills proficiency is critically important to enhance the student’s progress during research. Research skills proficiency is a student’s skilfulness in the command of fundamentals of computer applications, academic writing, data collection and handling, and communication skills deriving from practice and familiarity (Word Web, 2007).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Work-Life Balance: Is defined as the extent to which an individual Master of Education student can effectively manage multiple responsibilities at work, at home, and in other aspects of life.
Research Engagement: Is the feeling of positive emotions toward research work; investing personal resources, energy, and time in doing research as a meaningful activity; considering the research workload to be manageable, whilst taking advantage of collaborative, faculty, and institutional support; and having hope that the research work will attract better opportunities in future.
Postgraduate Student: A postgraduate student is a student who is studying a postgraduate course, including a master’s course, an MPhil and a PhD that requires an undergraduate degree as part of the entry requirements.
Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR): Is a way of describing the blurring of boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. It is a fusion of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other technologies.
Research Skills Proficiency: Refers to a student’s skillfulness in the command of fundamentals of computer applications, academic writing, data collection and handling, and communication skills deriving from practice and familiarity.
21st Century Research Skills: Refers to 12 abilities that are necessary for students’ academic and career success during the current Information Age. These include critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, information literacy, media literacy, technology literacy, flexibility, leadership, initiative, productivity, and social skills.