Membership in professional associations and productivity of teachers in Anglo-Saxon universities in Cameroon

Abstract

Teachers’ membership in professional associations provides opportunities for continuous education because such associations often hold meetings to update teachers on issues to improve their productivity in Anglo-Saxon Universities in Cameroon. The study examined the prevalence of teachers having membership in professional associations and the relationship between teachers’ membership in professional academic associations and their productivity in Anglo-Saxon Universities in Cameroon. The sequential convergent mixed method design was adopted for the study. The sample size of the study consisted of 436 lecturers, 603 postgraduate students, and 20 administrators. A questionnaire and an interview guide were the instruments adopted for the study. The Spearman rho test was used to test the hypotheses of the study, which examined the significant relationship between professional associations and teachers’ productivity in Anglo-Saxon Universities in Cameroon. The participants were sampled using purposive, proportionate, and convenient sampling techniques. The findings showed that 45.6% of the students do not see their lecturers as productive while 54.4% see them as productive. Furthermore, more of the teachers 61.0% are not members of any professional associations, while 39.0% are members. Despite a low percentage of teachers having membership in professional academic associations, many of them-66.5% (280) opined that membership in professional academic associations is important for teachers while 33.5% (141) said is not important. Thus, it was statistically revealed that membership in professional associations (R-value = 0.280**, p-value = 0.000, < 0.05) significantly and positively correlates with teachers’ productivity. Based on the findings, it was recommended that all teachers should at least be a member of one or two professional academic associations as it improves on their research and work output, and provides networking opportunities for members to attend conferences and be updated on the recent developments.