Research summary
This doctoral research investigated why some university lecturers sustain publication in reputable scholarly journals while others experience difficulty, even when they work within broadly similar academic environments. For this study, “mainstream journals” specifically meant journals indexed in Scopus. The focus was therefore not simply on how many papers lecturers produced, but on the academic capacities and institutional conditions associated with publication in journals whose records can be traced through a recognised bibliographic database.
The study centred on three academic capacities: collaborative practice, research self-efficacy and persistence in publishing. Collaborative practice refers to working with other researchers, sharing expertise and developing research together. Research self-efficacy concerns lecturers’ confidence in carrying out research tasks, including developing a research problem, selecting methods, analysing data and writing manuscripts. Persistence in publishing refers to continuing the publication process after setbacks, including rejection and critical reviewer feedback. The research examined how these capacities relate to one another and to publication outcomes, including whether collaboration may support publication indirectly by strengthening confidence and persistence.
A quantitatively dominant embedded mixed-methods design was used. The research covered 24 eligible universities in South-South Nigeria and a population of 18,392 academic staff who had at least one Scopus-indexed publication. The quantitative phase produced 3,481 usable responses, representing an 85.5% response rate. The qualitative phase involved interviews with 24 lecturers from federal, state and private universities; thematic saturation was reached at the 18th interview. Questionnaire data, traceable Scopus publication records and interview accounts were combined. The analyses included bibliometric assessment, correlation, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), mediation analysis, Artificial Neural Network modelling and thematic analysis.
The study also examined how university research performance can be understood beyond raw publication totals. It developed 11 formulas for assessing different aspects of research performance and introduced the University Research Performance Index (URPI), a composite measure intended to give a broader view of institutional performance. Under the URPI, the University of Benin ranked first in South-South Nigeria, followed by the University of Calabar and the University of Port Harcourt; the University of Uyo ranked fourth, while Delta State University, Abraka, was the highest-ranked state university. The rankings differed from what publication totals alone might suggest, illustrating why institutional size, age and research activity can matter when comparing universities.
The structural modelling showed that collaborative practice was associated with research self-efficacy and persistence in publishing, but did not directly predict publication in mainstream journals. Research self-efficacy predicted both persistence and publication, while persistence also predicted publication. The sequential pathway from collaboration through self-efficacy and persistence to publication was statistically significant. The findings suggest that collaboration may be most useful when it helps lecturers develop research skills, confidence and strategies for responding constructively to rejection, rather than simply increasing the number of co-authors or research contacts.
The interviews added context to these results. Lecturers described collaborations that developed through departmental relationships, doctoral programmes, supervisors, conferences and professional networks. They also explained that confidence can differ across research tasks: a lecturer may be comfortable with research design but less confident in advanced analysis, academic writing or responding to reviewers. Productive persistence was described as learning from feedback, revising manuscripts, improving methods and choosing journals carefully, rather than repeatedly submitting an unchanged paper. Participants also identified workload, limited funding, inadequate infrastructure, research culture and access to mentorship and networks as conditions that can affect publication opportunities.
Overall, the dissertation presents research publication as a process shaped by the interaction between academic capacities and institutional circumstances. Publication counts remain useful, but they provide only part of the picture. Supporting publication requires opportunities for meaningful collaboration, research training, mentorship, the development of task-specific research confidence, and persistence grounded in learning and manuscript improvement. These efforts also need to be supported by adequate funding, infrastructure, manageable workloads and protected time for research.