A CORRELATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF MOONLIGHTING AND THE PERFORMANCE OF ACADEMICS IN THE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18623/rvd.v22.n6.4025Keywords:
Academics’ Performance, Classroom Outcomes, Moonlighting, Part-Time Teaching, Professional Development, Research EvaluationAbstract
The act of taking on secondary jobs alongside primary academic roles is referred to as moonlighting. A practice common amongst academics, oftentimes due to inadequate remuneration. In analysing its effect on academics’ performance, 3,245 academics from the selected institutions of higher learning made up the study's population. The Spearman's Rank Correlation was used to analyse the collected data, and findings revealed that moonlighting is positively correlated with the performance of academics, as specifically indicated by classroom outcomes of students and part-time teaching, also with professional development and research evaluation roles. Hence, the study concluded that while moonlighting provides financial relief and professional enrichment, it can also undermine the core responsibilities of academics if these practices are left unchecked. It is therefore recommended that governments and university management must improve the remuneration of staff, also provide adequate research support, and develop unbiased policies to regulate external engagements, as this will aid in mitigating the adverse effects of moonlighting while preserving the quality of education being delivered.
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