<b>Assessment and Modelling of Research Undertaking, Digital-Technology Construct and Researchers’ Statistical Software Skills </b>

The study investigated the structural equation modelling of nine variables consisting of research undertaking, digi-tech construct (digital nativity, category of adoption of digital technologies, digital literacy, digital citizenship, statistical software anxiety, self-efficacy and knowledge) and researcher statistical software skills in the Sub-Sahara Africa. Human Functioning Theory and ex-post facto design were adopted. Multi stage sampling techniques were used to select 744 researchers across the Southwestern, Nigerian Universities and research institutes. Assessment of Researcher Digital Literacy-(KR20=0.86), Researcher Statistical Knowledge and Performance Skills-(KR20=0.82) and Researcher Statistical Software Operation Ability-(π=0.93) tests, Researcher Digital Construct Response-(r=0.84) and Researcher Statistical Software Anxiety and Efficacy-(r=0.87 and 0.76) scales were used. Data were analysed using path analysis. Eighteen out of the 35-hypothesised paths significantly explained the consistency of the causal model. Research undertaking-(0.02), digital nativity-(0.02), literacy-(0.01), citizenship-(0.06), statistical software anxiety-(0.01), statistical software self-efficacy-(0.02) and statistical software knowledge-(0.18) have 90.7% direct effect, whereas research undertaking-(0.01), digital literacy-(0.09), citizenship-(0.01) and statistical software anxiety-(0.02) accounted for 9.3% indirect effects on researcher statistical software skills. There was a positive causal effect of research undertaking and digi-tech construct on researcher statistical software skills. Therefore, researchers undertaking studies without inputs from digi-tech construct may not achieve sophisticated statistical software skills.