Comparative analysis of research outputs of academics in Private and Public Universities in South East Nigeria

Abstract

This study comparatively analyzed the research output of academics in public and private universities in South-East, Nigeria. Three research questions were formulated for the study and three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Ex post facto design was used for the study. Multistage sampling procedure involving proportionate and disproportionate stratified sampling, and simple random sampling was used to draw a sample size of 1,119 academics (896 from public universities and 1,762 from private universities) from four public and four private universities in two southeastern states (Anambra and Enugu states) of the country. Data were collected using an instrument titled Academic Staff Research Productivity Questionnaire (ASRPQ). The instrument was validated by three experts who are lecturers in Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Cronbach Alpha was used to evaluate the reliability of the instrument, which gave a coefficient of 0.732. Mean was used to answer the research questions while independent samples t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results among others reveal that research productivity of academics in both university types is low. Also, academics in public universities were significantly better than those in private universities in more forms of research output. Academics in both university types were found to publish mostly in international journals, and had the least research output in patents and certified inventions. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that academics be encouraged to explore and utilize other forms of research output for enhanced research productivity.