Appraising the efficiency and determinants of academic staff performance: The case of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

By definition, a research university, such as Universiti Kebangsaan, should be prolific in publication, advanced in teaching, and extensive in networking with industry, government, communities and the society at large. The first objective of this study was to assess the efficiency level of UKM faculties in publications. The second was to analyse the determinants of the staff s publication performance. The efficiency study involved all the 12 faculties in the university and analysed using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) introduced by Farrel (1957). The determinants analysis was based on information returned by 116 academic staff who were sampled by means of the Fact Sheet PEOD-6 method employed by Israel (1992). Results of the study revealed that the level of efficiency in publications was low for both faculties of science and social sciences. With respect to publication determinants, the variables of years of service, employment status, positions in the administration and supervision showed a positive and significant relationship with the number of publications, while the contrary was true with respect to the variables of research grants, marital status and the number of children. The findings point to the imperative of UKM’s academic staff being more proactive in enhancing their publication performance.