FACTORS INFLUENCING JOURNAL PUBLICATION CHOICE OF ACADEMIC STAFF IN SELECTED STATE UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTH-SOUTH NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the factors influencing the journal publication choice of academic staff in selected universities in south-south, Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive research design and used the total enumeration sampling technique to study the entire population. A total of 376 academic staff from seven selected state universities in south-south geo-political zone of Nigeria were used for this study. Three (3) research questions guided the study and data were collected using an online questionnaire. The validity of the instrument was determined by checking the face and content validity and the instrument proved valid because the items in the instrument are appropriate in terms of subject contents. Cronbach Alpha technique was used to determine the reliability coefficient of the instrument and an index of 0.87 was obtained. This shows that the internal consistency of the instrument is high and good. Data was analyzed with descriptive statistics such as frequency count and simple percentage. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents 367(98%) were motivated to carry out research by their desire to contribute to knowledge and other factors such as job promotion, tenure and assessment 232(62%). On the factors influencing their journal publication choice, it was observed that most of the academic staff indicated that the journal reputation, university acceptable journals and absence of journal publication fee are the major factors that influence their journal selection. It was also noted that high publishing fee, difficulty in accessing research funds and lack of sponsorship were the major barriers to academic research and publishing. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the school management should provide financial support to academics to publish in reputable journals with high publication fees and also sponsor them to important conferences and seminars.