WORKPLACE EMPOWERMENT AS PREDICTORS OF LECTURERS’ JOB COMMITMENT IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH–EAST, NIGERIA
Workplace empowerment is one of the most effective way to enhance lecturers’ job commitment. Without such empowerment, lecturers can become unsatisfied, leading to lower academic expectations among students. However, when lecturers are highly empowered, it will not only improve their job commitment but also contributes to student academic performance. The study examined workplace empowerment as predictors of lecturers’ job commitment in colleges of education in south east, Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted correlational research design. The population of this study comprised 1750 lecturers’ in all the three federal and five state colleges of education in South East, Nigeria. The sample of 175 lecturers (constituting 10% of the population) was used for the study. Accidental sampling technique were used for the study. The instruments for data collection were a researcher-structured questionnaire titled: Workplace Empowerment Questionnaire (WEQ) and Lecturers Job Commitment Questionnaire (LJCQ). The instruments were subjected to face and construct validation by three experts in the Department of Educational Foundations, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam Campus. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha Coefficient method and the average coefficient for WEQ is 0.83, and 0.91 for LJCQ. Simple linear regression and multiple linear regression analysis was used for the study. The findings of the study revealed that professional growth (r=0.873, p=0.000) and decision-making (r=0.412, p=0.000) positively and significantly predicted lecturers’job commitment in colleges of education in south-east, Nigeria. The study concluded that workplace empowerments and learning resources had positive variation towards job lecturers’ commitment in college of education in south east, Nigeria. Based on the findings, the study recommended that provost should establish a sustainable college-based yearly training programme for lecturers to constantly upgrade their skills and ways to continuing improving their teaching profession in order to optimize lecturers’ job commitment in college of education in south east, Nigeria.
Keywords: colleges, commitment, education, empowerment, job, lecturers’, nigeria, predictors, south–east, workplace