An Assessment of the Levels of Job Motivation and Satisfaction as Predictors of Job Performance of Library Personnel in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

This study investigated the levels of motivation, job satisfaction and job performance of library personnel in government and privately-owned universities in North-Central, Nigeria. Three research questions were raised. Survey research method was employed. The study covers six states, namely Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau States and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja. Survey method tested the relationships among variables thereby making generalizations about the library phenomenon. The target population for the study consisted of librarians and library officers in fully-operational universities in North-Central Nigeria. The entire population of librarians and library officers were adopted. Two sets of modified instruments: Motivational Factors Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (MFJSQ) and Job Performance Questionnaire (JPQ) were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the responses from the respondents. Above all, descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation was used to answer the three research questions on the levels of motivation, job satisfaction and job performance of library personnel. Findings showed moderate level of motivation and job satisfaction respectively while there was high level of job performance of library personnel. The study recommended that the management of universities in the North-Central Nigeria should take note of the following areas: adequate job design, description and employees' participation in decision making/leadership training, recognition and in-service training programme for library personnel. Other recommendation include: encouragement for library personnel to enhance job commitment and to be more predispose to critical thinking in order to be able to solve library related problems.

The Impact of Workplace Environments on Retention Outcomes of Public Universities in Southern Nigeria

“…The current finding indicates that the work environment has a positive and significant effect on the retention of academic staff. This support the findings of Ng'ethe et al (2012) and Saka and Salami (2014) who indicated that favourable and conducive work environments were necessary for human resource development practices, which positively affect the employee performance. This study also indicated that physical work milieu (i.e., desks, chairs, shelf, office arrangement, lighting, ventilation) and job characteristics (i.e., task identity, task significance, skill variety, autonomy, feedback) were the most significant predictors of retention among academic staff of selected universities.…”

“…The quantity and quality of the required academic staff make the difference in any university education system. (Oziengbe & Obhiosa, 2014;Saka & Salami, 2014) In Nigeria, the increasing number of these universities, coupled with the insufficient number of qualified academic staff, has become worrisome, especially in public universities. Nigeria's university education has been faced with a high degree of apprehension and recurrent crises of different kinds which have ultimately resulted in the incessant strike embarked by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).…”

Effect of Instructional Supervisory Practices on Teacher Motivation in Private Secondary Schools of Lahore, Pakistan

“…Teacher satisfaction is directly related to teacher motivation (Shah, Akhtar, Zafar, & Riaz, 2012;Rusu, & Avasilcai, 2013;Saka, & Salman, 2014). A study was conducted in Malaysia and China simultaneously by Hamzah, Wei, Ahmad, Hamid, and Mansor (2013) that showed a positive but medium relationship between supervisory practices and teacher satisfaction among teaching staff in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while a positive and strong relationship among teachers in Hefei, China.…”

Research collaboration among library and information science professionals in Nigerian universities

“…The predictors of research collaboration among LIS professionals found in this study include research emphases, areas of specialization, academic cohorts and ranks in the discipline. Previous studies have also found that researchers in the same areas of knowledge or who jointly identify a problem to be solved usually engage in research collaboration (Abbas, 2016; Kwiek, 2018). However, it is very evident that research collaboration by researchers from different backgrounds may promote “disjointed incrementalism” if the problem to be solved does not entail an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach.…”