INFLUENCE OF CONFERENCE ON ACADEMIC STAFF PERFORMANCE AND RETENTION IN FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN NORTH-WEST ZONE, NIGERIA
Keywords:
Conference, Academic Staff Performance, Retention, Federal UniversitiesAbstract
This study examined the Influence of Conference on Academic Staff Performance and Retention in Federal Universities in North-West Zone, Nigeria. The study was guided by two objectives which include determine the influence of conference on academic staff performance in federal universities in North-West Zone, Nigeria; and to find out the influence of conference on academic staff retention in federal universities in North-West Zone, Nigeria with two corresponding null hypotheses. The study used a descriptive survey research design. The total population of the study comprised of fifteen thousand nine hundred and six (15, 906). The study used multi-stage sampling technique and the sample size of the study was 375 respondents determined using Research Advisors sampling table (2006). Data were collected using adapted questionnaires titled “Capacity Building Programmes Questionnaire (CBPQ), Academic Staff Performance Questionnaire (ASPQ) and Academic Staff Retention Questionnaire (ASRQ). The three instruments were validated by three professionals from both Educational Administration and Planning and Test and Measurement while the reliability of the instruments was 0.78, 0.88 and .89 respectively determined using Cronbach alpha. A simple linear regression was used to testing the null hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that conference had no statistically significant influence on academic staff performance in federal universities in North-West Zone, Nigeria (β = .015, R2 = .000, p = .780 > .05); conference had statistically significant negative influence on academic staff retention in federal universities in North-West Zone, Nigeria (β = -.111, R2 = -.12, p = .035 < .05). The study recommends that university management and other bodies should managed conference participation strategically by complementing conference sponsorship with career development, recognition and improved working conditions so that professional exposure strengthens institutional attachment rather than encouraging staff mobility and promotion sake promotion purposes.
References
Franken, J., Birukou, A., Eckert, K., Fahl, W., Hauschke, C., & Lange, C. (2022). Persistent identification for conferences. Data Science Journal, 21, Article 11, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2022-011
Becker, G. S. (1964). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. National Bureau of Economic Research.
Freeman, M. (2017). Academic conferences: A conceptual overview. International Journal of Research Conferences, 5(1), 1–14.
Gabadeen, W. O., Joseph, R. O., & Sadiku, A. O. (2025). Influence of academic conference attendance on education innovation output in public universities in North Central, Nigeria. Nigerian Journal of Educational Administration and Planning, 25(1), 45–61.
Henderson, E. F., & Burford, J. (2020). Thoughtful gatherings: Gendering conferences as spaces of learning, knowledge production and community. Gender and Education, 32(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2019.1691718
Hansen, T. T., & David, B. P. (2018). The impact of academic events—A literature review. Research Evaluation, 27(4), 358–366. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvy025
Mustapha, A. M., & Gbonegun, V. O. (2021). Training and development and lecturers' productivity in federal universities in North-Central, Nigeria. Nigerian Journal of Educational Administration and Planning, 21(2), 156–174.
Nagarathanam, M., Venkitasamy, R., & Attiah, E. (2018). Job opportunities and long-term employee retention in organisations. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 8(2), 112–126. National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). (2025). Directorate of Staff Training and Development. Retrieved from NOUN website.
Nwosu, J. C., & Ofoegbu, F. I. (2019). In-service training and lecturers' job effectiveness in universities in Anambra State, Nigeri;. Journal of Educational Research and Development, 12(1), 78–93.
Ogunode, N. J., & Ibrahim, G. F. (2023). Impact of motivation on academic staff job performance in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Analytical Journal of Education and Development, 3(11), 335–362.
Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Frels, R. K. (2016). Seven steps to a comprehensive literature review: A multimodal and cultural approach. Sage.
Oyalabu, G. I., Abolaji, S., & Okon, E. E. (2023). Human capital development and academic staff retention in private universities in Southwest, Nigeria. Sapientia Foundation Journal of Education, Sciences and Gender Studies, 5(1), 107–118.
Selesho, J. M., & Naile, I. (2014). Academic staff retention as a human resource factor: University perspective. International Business and Economics Research Journal, 13(2), 295–304.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2022). Global education monitoring report 2022. UNESCO Publishing.
University of Nigeria, Nsukka. (2022). Book of abstracts: UNN 2nd annual international conference (hybrid). Conference publication (PDF).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, adaptation, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors are permitted to post their work online in institutional/disciplinary repositories or on their own websites. Pre-print versions posted online should include a citation and link to the final published version in Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication as soon as the issue is available; post-print versions (including the final publisher's PDF) should include a citation and link to the journal's website.
