ACADEMIC STRESS MANAGEMENT AND LECTURERS’ PRODUCTIVITY IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper examined academic stress management and productivity in public Universities in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study adopted a correlational design. The population of the study comprised 1,900 academic staff in two public universities in Lagos State, Nigeria. Three research questions were raised and three null hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance. A sample of 550 respondents was drawn through simple random sampling techniques. Two research instruments titled ‘Academic Stress Management Questionnaire’ (ASMQ) and ‘Lecturers’ Productivity Questionnaire’ (LPQ) were used for data collection. Content validity of the instruments was ensured by test experts and the reliability consistency of the instruments was 0.69 using Cronbach’s alpha. The Kendall's tau-b correlation was used to analyse data collected via Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23.0. The findings of hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 showed that: a significant relationship existed between academic staff teaching stress and lecturers’ productivity in public universities in Lagos State, Nigeria (τb = .561; N=550; p<0.05); a significant relationship existed between academic staff research stress and lecturers’ productivity in public universities Lagos State, Nigeria (τb =.651; N=550; p>.05); and a significant relationship existed between academic staff community services stress and lecturers’ productivity in public universities Lagos State, Nigeria (τb= .595; N=550; p>.05). Based on the findings, the study concluded that academic stress can be properly managed if the management of public universities caters for lecturers’ welfare and provide enabling environment for teaching, research, and community services. Therefore, it is recommended amongst others that government should increase academic research funds allocated to public universities via Tetfund, need assessment funds, and provide adequate teaching facilities for academic staff to be more productive.