EFFECT OF VIRTUAL MENTORING NETWORKS ON STUDENTS' ENGAGEMENT IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN BAYELSA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract The study investigated the effect of virtual mentoring networks on students’ engagement in software engineering in public universities in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Two research questions and two null hypotheses tested at the 0.05 level of significance guided the study. It adopted quasi-experimental research design using a pre-test and post-test format with non-equivalent groups. The population comprised 84 first year Computer Science Education students. The experimental group consisted of 48 students (40 males and 8 females), while the control group had 36 students. The instrument for this study was "Software Engineering Engagement Test (SEET)". The validity of SEET was established through face and content validation, while its reliability was tested on a group of 20 students using Kuder Richardson Formula 21 which yielded 0.82. The research process involved administering the SEET as a pre-test to both the experimental and control groups before implementing the virtual mentoring networks treatment. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation, while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses. The study found that students who learned software engineering through virtual mentoring networks had better engagement than those taught with traditional methods. Their post-test mean scores were noticeably higher. It was also observed that, within the experimental group, male students scored higher than the female students. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended in this study among others that public universities in Bayelsa State should integrate virtual mentoring networks into their teaching methods to improve students’ engagement.