4.1.1 Research article publication and presentation at conferences
Although conducting and publishing research outputs is one of the core activities of the academic staff in our university, publishing research articles by the study participants was very less. The average number of publications per year in the last five consecutive years was at a low level and less than one (.47±.35). A study reported by Tulu (1) showed that 70.3% of study participants replied that the degree to which teachers were participating in research is rated low.
However, the academic staff in most African universities published at least one research article per year (11, 24, 25). In the study conducted by Olakunle (2019), academic staff in medical Colleges found in Nigeria published more than two research articles per year. Similarly, Oyeyemi et al. (25) reported that the average number of research articles published by medical educators in Nigeria per year was 2.2. The variation in the number of research article publications per year between these studies could be attributed to differences in socio-demographic characteristics, research capacity promotion strategies, staff profile, availability of facilities for research activities, and other institutional factors. In a study conducted by Kazoka and Wema (26), the availability of facilities for research activities and research capacity promotion strategy were among the factors contributing to research activities. Although more studies are important to see the effects of low research productivity in the early academic career in progressing toward further professional development, few studies showed that lower earl productivity in research activities negatively affects future careers (27, 28).
In this study, the average number of research articles presented at conferences per year in the last five consecutive years was less than one (.48±.29). However, in the study conducted by Oyeyemi et al. (25), the average number of research articles presented at conferences was greater than one (1.5±1.33). The disagreement between these study findings could be attributed to the accessibility of academic conferences, abstract preparation skills, availability of grants, and satisfaction from previous conferences, and educators’ perception of the conferences.
4.1.2 Factors affecting research article publication and presentation at conferences
In our study, the average number of publications per year was affected by monthly salary, academic experiences, and attitudes and motivations of study participants toward CPD activities. Similar to our research, the study conducted by Finch et al. (29) revealed that research engagement activities were affected by the overall interest of the study participants in CPD activities including research. Another study also showed that lack of motivation was one of the factors for poor Continuous professional development activities, conducting and publishing research articles (4). Otherwise, attitude and motivation affect CPD activities (7).
Though the Post Hoc analysis didn’t show a difference, the one-way ANOVA showed significant variation in the average number of research article publications between participants with no mentor, poor, moderate, and stronger mentor-mentee relationships. Previous research reported that mentoring improves research productivity, promotes unintended outcomes, and recommends mentoring programs (30). Kazoka and Wema (26) also indicated that research capacity developments were affected by poor collaboration between senior and junior academic staff, showing that a better mentor-mentee relationship is essential to increase research capacity by early career academic staff.
Like our study, a previous study showed that teachers with more teaching experience positively perceived CPD activity practices such as research (19). Personal factors such as motivation and experiences affected teachers’ research engagements (31). Studies conducted before indicated that experience variation between teachers caused variation in the CPD activity practices including research (8, 32, 33). A study conducted at Addis Ababa University has shown that one of the factors contributes to limited research publication, particularly among females with fewer academic experiences (34).
Similar to our research finding, a study has been conducted in Nigeria showed that low salaries affected employee performance negatively (35). Another study also found that increased salary enhances workers' productivity (36). On the other hand, funds greatly impacted research productivity (13).
Our study has shown that, though the difference was not statistically significant, those study participants with no problems in research skills had more research article publications than those with poor research skills (.51±.41 vs .42±.29, t (193) = 1.81, p = 0.07, 95% CI (-.01, .19). A study has done by Kazoka and Wema, (26) displayed that research capacity developments were affected by insufficient research skills and competencies.
However, age, sex, support from departments and institutions, family size, academic rank, initial training, the field of study, and weekly workload didn’t affect the average number of publications. Unlike our study, the previous study indicated that publication numbers increased with age (37). In this previous study, the average number of publications per year in both sexes was greater than one in the age group between 40 and 60 years. Such a difference was not observed in our study. The disagreement between these findings could be attributed to the sample size, field of study, and academic profiles of the study participants. In the study conducted by Rorstad and Aksnes (37), 12,400 study participants from different fields of study (humanities, medicine, social sciences, and engendering) were involved. Whereas, 195 study participants from the field of medicine have participated in our study. Besides, in the previous study, professors, associate professors, postdocs, and Ph.D. students were involved, while only lecturers and assistant professors were involved in our study.
Unlike our study, different studies conducted before showed that females are less involved in research activities than males (37, 39, 40). A study conducted by Nega et al. (34) also revealed that though females were involved in research grant applications, their publication activities were limited due to social and family responsibilities, low salaries, lack of research skills, and lack of networking.
Similarly to our study, Atanda and Olasupo (12) also didn’t show a significant difference in the number of publications between males and females. The reason for no significant difference in the research activities between males and females in our study could be attributed to the presence of female’s oriented projects in our university, different women empowerment actions conducted by the University, a comprehensive gender equity action plan implemented by AAU, female academic career development and gender equity promotion in the university and college of health sciences, According to the survey has been conducted earlier, a comprehensive gender equity action plan was developed and implemented by Addis Ababa university-CHS faculty and administration (41). This might contribute to similar research publication numbers between males and females in our study.
Unlike our findings, previous studies showed that the highest qualification and current job classification level predicted research engagement (25, 29). A review conducted by Wahid et al. (42) revealed that qualification was the primary determinant factor affecting research publication productivity. The disagreement between these findings could be attributed to variations in the study participants. In the study conducted by Finch et al. (29), female participants were dominant, and the highest percentage of the study participants were bachelor's degree holders. However, in our study, males were dominated, and bachelor's degree holders were excluded from the study.
Significant differences in the average number of publications were not observed between participants from basic and clinical science departments. However, another study indicated that academics in the clinical sciences tend to have more published research papers than their counterparts in the Basic Sciences (25).
In our study, more than half of the study participants had a weekly workload less than expected and mentioned in our university's legislation. At the same time, the weekly workload didn’t affect the number of publications per year in the last five consecutive years, showing that publication productivity was not affected by time. However, other research articles and reviews showed that time is one of the factors affecting research effectiveness (4, 8, 26, 43, 44).
In this study, the average number of research articles presented at conferences per year in the last five consecutive years in this study was low and significantly affected by the field of study, academic rank, age, and support from departments. Our study showed that the average number of research articles presented at conferences was significantly higher in basic science departments than in clinical departments. However, the study reported by Oyeyemi et al. (25) showed that academics in the clinical sciences tend to have more published research articles and presented at conferences than basic sciences. The variation in the findings between our study and a study conducted by Oyeyemi et al. (25) could be attributed to the study participants. In our study, only lecturers and assistant professors were involved, while professors were also involved in the study conducted by Oyeyemi et al. (25). In addition to differences in the study participants, grants, experiences, interest in academic conferences, and academic positions might also contribute to the variation in the findings. Pavlukovic and Cimbaljevic (45) reported that conference participation and presenting abstracts were affected by cost, age, educational level, and academic position. According to Pavlukovic and Cimbaljevic's (45) report, conference participation was affected by gender, age, education level, and academic status. Researchers from different research fields differ significantly in their opinion about the importance of conferences (46), indicating that field of study affects the number of articles presented at conferences.