Bawa Joseph | University of Ghana (original) (raw)
Papers by Bawa Joseph
The emergence of the internet has propelled the influence of social media among tertiary students... more The emergence of the internet has propelled the influence of social media among tertiary students all over the world. This study investigates the effect of social media on the academic lives of University of Ghana undergraduate students as well as their coping strategies in dealing with the social media pressures. By relying on a mixed method approach and a sample of 420 students from the University of Ghana, the study shows that WhatsApp is the mostly used social media platform among University of Ghana students for academic purposes. Also, the study showed that social media platforms are often used to communicate with their family and friends rather than for academic purposes. While the use of social media positively impacted on academic performance through research, the study also showed that it impacts negatively on academic lives given its addictive nature. Thus, to cope with this effect, the study revealed that respondents prefer to put off their mobile data or WiFi when study...
Journal of Religion in Africa, 2022
Although a secular state by legislation, Ghana is highly considered a religious one with a signif... more Although a secular state by legislation, Ghana is highly considered a religious one with a significant number of the population being Christians. Using Christians in some selected municipalities in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, this study examines the opinions of believers toward Ghanaian churches. Through a quantitative method, the study revealed that prayer service is the least important practice of the church liked by Christians. In addition, majority of Christians disliked their churches because of unfaithful pastors, long sermons and late closure of church services. Again, the study revealed that churches concentrate on the message of personal prosperity more than repentance toward salvation. They have an overly monetized and materialistic leaning in their sermons. The study recommends the need for churches in Ghana to leverage on the importance of research on regular basis to ascertain the opinions of the members to give churches the right direction to develop.
Attitude and Perception of Ghanaians toward the Church, 2022
Although a secular state by legislation, Ghana is highly considered a religious one with a signif... more Although a secular state by legislation, Ghana is highly considered a religious one with a significant number of the population being Christians. Using Christians in some selected municipalities in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, this study examines the opinions of believers toward Ghanaian churches. Through a quantitative method, the study revealed that prayer service is the least important practice of the church liked by Christians. In addition, majority of Christians disliked their churches because of unfaithful pastors, long sermons and late closure of church services. Again, the study revealed that churches concentrate on the message of personal prosperity more than repentance toward salvation. They have an overly monetized and materialistic leaning in their sermons. The study recommends the need for churches in Ghana to leverage on the importance of research on regular basis to ascertain the opinions of the members to give churches the right direction to develop.
The Journal of Social Media for Learning, 2021
The emergence of the internet has propelled the influence of social media among tertiary students... more The emergence of the internet has propelled the influence of social media among tertiary students all over the world. This study investigates the effects of social media on the academic lives of University of Ghana undergraduate students as well as their coping strategies in dealing with the social media pressures. By relying on a mixed method approach and drawing a sample of 420 students from the University of Ghana, the study shows that WhatsApp is the most used social media platform among University of Ghana students for academic purposes. Also, the study showed that social media platforms are often used by students to communicate with their families and friends rather than for academic purposes. While the use of social media positively impacts academic performance through addictive nature. Thus, to contain this effect, the study revealed a number of coping strategies that students employ to shove off the social media pressure. Critical among them are putting off their internet data or WIFI, limiting the number of social media applications on their phones, and deleting all social media accounts such as Facebook and WhatsApp during examination periods. It is recommended that the University of Ghana, through the Careers and Counselling Centre embarks on sensitisation programmes for students on how to balance and manage their study times vis a vis social media usage for optimal results..
Africa's political development. It underscores three important issues of governance, conflict and... more Africa's political development. It underscores three important issues of governance, conflict and peace-building. The work constitutes three main chapters. Chapter one analyses the democratic dispensation of the Fourth Republic of Ghana. It takes a look at some of the challenges of Ghana's democracy and concludes that Ghana which has won the accolade of being "the gateway" of democratic governance in Sub-Saharan Africa is at best a democratizing state rather than being democratic. The findings of the work clearly give the evidence of fear, acrimony and incumbency abuse of elections as a constant threat to Ghana's democratization process. It has also been revealed that ethnicity has become a major determinant of electoral politics in Ghana which has been couched in the Akan-Ewe electoral card played by the two front-horses of Ghana's politics, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) whose electoral successes have been influenced by the Akans and Ewes respectively since the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1992. Other challenges include the low participation of women in politics and public life, the frequent boycotts of parliamentary sessions by the NPP and the NDC and the lack of respect for the rule of law. Chapter two examines the impact of conflict on poverty and food security in Africa. It concludes that all the effects of conflict are poverty and food insecurity related. The work establishes the fact that poverty and food insecurity on the African continent has been exacerbated by the conflict prone nature of African states from the loss of lives and physical suffering to the effects of conflict on the natural environment. The work draws practical examples from intractable civil war countries like Angola, Sudan, DR Congo and Sierra Leone among many others for concrete evidence upon which the lessons of the study are much appreciated for the progress of the continent. iii The final chapter underscores the challenges of post-conflict peace-building in Africa. It takes a deep analysis of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SLTRC) inaugurated in 2002. The analysis of the SLTRC offers a good lesson for the viability of truth commissions as effective transitional justice mechanism for addressing the legacy of past human rights abuse. The SLTRC remains one of the effective of its kinds in Africa due to its massive international involvement, the greater participation of civil society organisations throughout the activities and processes of the commission, the public hearing and high publicity of the proceeding of the commission and the special attention given to women and children. However, the commission was plagued with a number of challenges, inter alia; the simultaneous operation of the Sierra Leone Special Court (SLSC); obstacles of making the wider public aware of and knowledgeable of the commission such as illiteracy, lack of single lingua franca and security concerns etc.; serious mismanagement and staff recruitment problems; and time, resource and funding constraints.
The emergence of the internet has propelled the influence of social media among tertiary students... more The emergence of the internet has propelled the influence of social media among tertiary students all over the world. This study investigates the effect of social media on the academic lives of University of Ghana undergraduate students as well as their coping strategies in dealing with the social media pressures. By relying on a mixed method approach and a sample of 420 students from the University of Ghana, the study shows that WhatsApp is the mostly used social media platform among University of Ghana students for academic purposes. Also, the study showed that social media platforms are often used to communicate with their family and friends rather than for academic purposes. While the use of social media positively impacted on academic performance through research, the study also showed that it impacts negatively on academic lives given its addictive nature. Thus, to cope with this effect, the study revealed that respondents prefer to put off their mobile data or WiFi when study...
Journal of Religion in Africa, 2022
Although a secular state by legislation, Ghana is highly considered a religious one with a signif... more Although a secular state by legislation, Ghana is highly considered a religious one with a significant number of the population being Christians. Using Christians in some selected municipalities in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, this study examines the opinions of believers toward Ghanaian churches. Through a quantitative method, the study revealed that prayer service is the least important practice of the church liked by Christians. In addition, majority of Christians disliked their churches because of unfaithful pastors, long sermons and late closure of church services. Again, the study revealed that churches concentrate on the message of personal prosperity more than repentance toward salvation. They have an overly monetized and materialistic leaning in their sermons. The study recommends the need for churches in Ghana to leverage on the importance of research on regular basis to ascertain the opinions of the members to give churches the right direction to develop.
Attitude and Perception of Ghanaians toward the Church, 2022
Although a secular state by legislation, Ghana is highly considered a religious one with a signif... more Although a secular state by legislation, Ghana is highly considered a religious one with a significant number of the population being Christians. Using Christians in some selected municipalities in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, this study examines the opinions of believers toward Ghanaian churches. Through a quantitative method, the study revealed that prayer service is the least important practice of the church liked by Christians. In addition, majority of Christians disliked their churches because of unfaithful pastors, long sermons and late closure of church services. Again, the study revealed that churches concentrate on the message of personal prosperity more than repentance toward salvation. They have an overly monetized and materialistic leaning in their sermons. The study recommends the need for churches in Ghana to leverage on the importance of research on regular basis to ascertain the opinions of the members to give churches the right direction to develop.
The Journal of Social Media for Learning, 2021
The emergence of the internet has propelled the influence of social media among tertiary students... more The emergence of the internet has propelled the influence of social media among tertiary students all over the world. This study investigates the effects of social media on the academic lives of University of Ghana undergraduate students as well as their coping strategies in dealing with the social media pressures. By relying on a mixed method approach and drawing a sample of 420 students from the University of Ghana, the study shows that WhatsApp is the most used social media platform among University of Ghana students for academic purposes. Also, the study showed that social media platforms are often used by students to communicate with their families and friends rather than for academic purposes. While the use of social media positively impacts academic performance through addictive nature. Thus, to contain this effect, the study revealed a number of coping strategies that students employ to shove off the social media pressure. Critical among them are putting off their internet data or WIFI, limiting the number of social media applications on their phones, and deleting all social media accounts such as Facebook and WhatsApp during examination periods. It is recommended that the University of Ghana, through the Careers and Counselling Centre embarks on sensitisation programmes for students on how to balance and manage their study times vis a vis social media usage for optimal results..
Africa's political development. It underscores three important issues of governance, conflict and... more Africa's political development. It underscores three important issues of governance, conflict and peace-building. The work constitutes three main chapters. Chapter one analyses the democratic dispensation of the Fourth Republic of Ghana. It takes a look at some of the challenges of Ghana's democracy and concludes that Ghana which has won the accolade of being "the gateway" of democratic governance in Sub-Saharan Africa is at best a democratizing state rather than being democratic. The findings of the work clearly give the evidence of fear, acrimony and incumbency abuse of elections as a constant threat to Ghana's democratization process. It has also been revealed that ethnicity has become a major determinant of electoral politics in Ghana which has been couched in the Akan-Ewe electoral card played by the two front-horses of Ghana's politics, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) whose electoral successes have been influenced by the Akans and Ewes respectively since the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1992. Other challenges include the low participation of women in politics and public life, the frequent boycotts of parliamentary sessions by the NPP and the NDC and the lack of respect for the rule of law. Chapter two examines the impact of conflict on poverty and food security in Africa. It concludes that all the effects of conflict are poverty and food insecurity related. The work establishes the fact that poverty and food insecurity on the African continent has been exacerbated by the conflict prone nature of African states from the loss of lives and physical suffering to the effects of conflict on the natural environment. The work draws practical examples from intractable civil war countries like Angola, Sudan, DR Congo and Sierra Leone among many others for concrete evidence upon which the lessons of the study are much appreciated for the progress of the continent. iii The final chapter underscores the challenges of post-conflict peace-building in Africa. It takes a deep analysis of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SLTRC) inaugurated in 2002. The analysis of the SLTRC offers a good lesson for the viability of truth commissions as effective transitional justice mechanism for addressing the legacy of past human rights abuse. The SLTRC remains one of the effective of its kinds in Africa due to its massive international involvement, the greater participation of civil society organisations throughout the activities and processes of the commission, the public hearing and high publicity of the proceeding of the commission and the special attention given to women and children. However, the commission was plagued with a number of challenges, inter alia; the simultaneous operation of the Sierra Leone Special Court (SLSC); obstacles of making the wider public aware of and knowledgeable of the commission such as illiteracy, lack of single lingua franca and security concerns etc.; serious mismanagement and staff recruitment problems; and time, resource and funding constraints.