PSYCHO-SOCIAL FACTORS AS PREDICTORS OF FEMALE ACADEMIC STAFF JOB COMMITMENT IN UNVERSITIES IN SOUTH WESTERN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Most female academics have over the years developed low contentment and feelings about various aspects of their jobs arising from work-family life stress. This has resulted in a weak attachment to their institutions and low level of willingness to exert high level of efforts on their jobs. Though literature on job commitment and performance in Nigerian universities is vast and rich, most past studies have focused more on the male faculties’ job commitment with little attention paid to the females’. This study, therefore, investigated psycho-social factors predisposing job commitment of female academic staff in universities in South Western Nigeria. The survey research design was adopted. The total enumeration and purposive sampling techniques were used to select 1125 single and married female academics (922 junior and 203 senior academic staff) from nine universities comprising: three each of federal, state and private. Six instruments were used: Social Factors Scale (r=0.62), Self- Efficacy Scale (r=0.75), Self- Esteem Scale (r=0.83), Self- Concept Scale (r=0.85), Work Value Scale (r=0.71) and Female Academics’ Job Commitment Scale (r=0.64). These were complemented with eighteen sessions of in-depth interviews (IDIs) with two female academics per university. One research question was answered and five hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t- test, Pearson Product Moment Correlation, multiple regression and content analysis. Psycho-social factors significantly correlated with female academics’ job commitment (F (7, 1118) =90.14; R2 =.571, p