AWARENESS, KNOWLEDGE AND UTILISATION OF ELECTRONIC DATABASES AS PREDICTORS OF RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY OF ACADEMIC STAFF IN PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

Research productivity in universities is the totality of research done by academic staff within a given period. The quality of teaching, research and community service carried out by lecturers largely depends on access to quality electronic databases. Reports have shown that research productivity of academic staff in private universities in southwestern Nigeria is relatively low. Previous studies largely focused on interventions made to improve research productivity of academic staff with little consideration of the role of awareness, knowledge and utilisation of electronic databases, particularly in private universities. This study, therefore, was conducted to investigate awareness, knowledge and utilisation of electronic databases as predictors of research productivity in private universities in southwestern Nigeria. Herzberg’s Motivation Theory guided the study. The survey design of the correlational type was adopted. Twenty-one private universities out of the 27 approved between 1999 and 2012 were purposively selected based on availability of functional electronic databases. Proportional to size and stratified random sampling techniques were used to select 30% of academic staff across the various ranks in the selected universities, making a total of 657. The instruments used were Awareness of Electronic Databases (r=0.75), Knowledgeof Electronic Databases (r=0.87), Utilisation of Electronic Databases (r=0.85) and Research Productivity (r=0.74) scales. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics, Spearman’s rank correlation and Multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance. The study respondents were 56.0% male and 44.0% female, and ranked as: Lecturer I (31.0%), Lecturer II (22.0%), Senior Lecturer (17.0%), Assistant Lecturer (11.0%) and others (19.0%). They were drawn from Science (40%), Social/Management Sciences (28.8%), Library (8.4%), Arts/Humanities (7.5%), Engineering (5.3%), Environmental Studies (4.0%), Law (2.3%), Nursing Science (1.3%), Leadership Development Studies (0.9%), Basic Medical Science (0.8) and Agriculture (0.8%). Although awareness and knowledge of databases were high, their utilisation and academic productivity were low: awareness ( = 3.25) was high, as against the threshold of 2.50, knowledge ( = 2.81) was high as against the threshold of 2.50, while utilisation of electronic databases ( = 3.60) was low as against the threshold of 4.00, and consequently, academic staff research productivity ( = 2.02) was low as against the norm test of 3.00. Utilisation (r=0.46), knowledge (r=0.40) and awareness (r=0.36) of databases had positive significant correlations with research productivity. Jointly, awareness, knowledge and utilisation of electronic databases significantly predicted research productivity (F (3,654) = 117.67; Adjusted R2 = 0.37), accounting for 37.0% of its variance. Awareness (β=0.06), knowledge (β=0.40) and utilisation of electronic databases (β=0.33) had relative significant contributions to research productivity of academic staff. Awareness, knowledge and utilisation of electronic databases determined the research productivity of academic staff in private universities in the southwestern Nigeria. Low research productivity can be overcome if investment in ICT facilities at the private universities is increased and academic staff utilise them in line with the emerging digital trend in universities around the world.