Teaching Staff Professional Ethics and Quality of Educational Output in Federal Universities, South-South Zone of Nigeria

The study examined the extent to which teaching staff professional ethics predict quality of educational  output in federal universities, South-South Zone of Nigeria. Four research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The correlational research design was used for the study. The population comprised 6,305 teaching staff and 32,613 students. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 1,275 teaching staff and 3,021 students. Two instruments titled “Teaching Staff Professional Ethics Questionnaire (TSPEQ)”, and a documentary analysis checklist titled “Graduate Educational Output Checklist (GEOC)” were used for data collection. The reliability co-efficient of TSPEQ was determined using the Cronbach Alpha Analysis and a reliability index of 0.83 was obtained. Graph, coefficient of R value and R2 were used to answer the research questions while the f-value of Simple Linear Regression Analysis was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that teaching staff professional ethics variables of professional competence, professional integrity and professional accountability significantly predicts quality of educational output in federal universities, South-South Zone of Nigeria. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended amongst others that, university management should ensure that professional ethics of teacher accountability is  upheld by enforcing periodic self- appraisal by teachers, assessment by students and performance appraisal.