Dr Chidirim Esther Nwogwugwu, Dr Blessing Ikiroma & Dr Sylvia Victor Ovat
Abstract
The study was designed to examine lecturers’ perception on automation of promotion exercises in universities in South- South Nigeria. Survey research design was adopted for the study. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 300 lecturers of different genders, academic ranks and years of teaching experience. It was guided by four research questions and three hypotheses. Perception of Academics on the Use of Automation for Promotion Questionnaire (PAUAPQ) was used to gather data. The instrument was validated by three research experts from two universities, while reliability coefficient of 0.86 was established through Cronbach Alpha statistics. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation, while hypotheses were tested using t-test and one way ANOVA. Results revealed that academic staff are dissatisfied with the automation of their promotion exercises. In addition, gender and rank of the academics do no significantly influence their satisfaction with regards to the automation of their promotion assessment, while years of teaching experience do. It was recommended, among others, that the university should design programmes focusing on automation literacy, regardless of gender and rank, to enhance the academics comfort with technology.