INTEGRATING COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE AND PSYCHOMOTOR LEARNING: A PARADIGM SHIFT FOR RESULT-ORIENTED ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

Abstract

Graduate unemployment has become one of the most pernicious problems staring the Nigerian youth on the face. It has in recent time reached an alarming rate with its effects manifesting daily. This has been attributed to the low level of growth of the national economy and largely due to a faulty educational system. Attempts at providing entrepreneurial skills development have not yielded the desired results mainly because the graduates are not attitudinally prepared for self employment. Most of these schemes focus more on training in skills acquisition and cognitive processes with little or no emphasis on attitudinal change and other worthwhile values like value re-orientation, perseverance, resilience, dignity of labour, interest, integrity, etc (affective learning). For entrepreneurial education scheme to be result oriented, there must be a paradigm shift towards training for knowledge, skills and attitude i.e. a fine blend of cognitive, psychomotor and affective learning because what makes one an entrepreneur is not necessarily the content of cognitive and motor skills acquired but an interface of these with attitudinal components which act as the driving force, motivator, propeller, etc. It is therefore advocated that policy makers incorporate these in all entrepreneurial education programme.