DEARTH OF QUALITATIVE PRACTITIONERS IN CONDUCTING QUALITATIVE METHODS IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES: NEED FOR PARADIGM SHIFT

Abstract

In Nigeria, universities have experienced a dearth of qualitative methods practitioners. 
The scarcity of these scholars is problematic when one considers the flourish nature of 
these experts in Europe, Americas and Asia. It is on this basis that the study seeks to 
explore the dearth of qualitative experts in Nigerian universities. To address why this 
‘glitch’ happen in our university system, two research questions were posed. Qualitative 
method was adopted, interpretive paradigm was used to understand participants’ reasons 
of not adopting qualitative methods in their research. Focus group was applied and semi 
structure interview was adopted to gather the information for this study. Thematic 
analysis was used in the study. Findings indicated among others that the scarcity of 
qualitative researchers aside from being a new course in Nigerian university system, it is 
completely rigorous and robust in all its ramifications. In light the findings, it was 
recommended among others that students should be introduced to qualitative methods at 
the early stage of first-degree level just like we engages them in quantitative methods, by 
so doing, qualitative methods will gain prominent like its quantitative methods’ 
counterpart in Nigerian universities.