Institutional Internal Practices and Heads of Departments’ Accountability in Public Universities in South-South, Nigeria

The study determined the extent to which institutional internal practices predict heads of departments’ accountability in public universities in South-South, Nigeria. Two research questions were raised and two null hypotheses were also postulated to guide the study. The correlation design was used for the study. The population for the study consisted of all the 374 Heads of Departments in six public universities in south – south, Nigeria during the 2019/2020 academic year. The sample of the study consisted of 306 Heads of Departments representing 90% of the Heads of Departments population. Multi – stage sampling technique was used to select sample from the six federal universities in South–South Geo-Political Zone of Nigeria. The instruments for data collection was the researcher – made instruments titled “Institutional Internal Practices questionnaire (IIPQ) and Heads of Department Accountability Questionnaire (HDAQ)” which were validated by experts in the Educational Foundation, Guidance and Counselling, Curriculum Studies, Educational Management and Planning respectively. The Cronbach’s Alpha Analysis was used to determine the reliability of the instruments which yielded reliability co-efficients of .76 for IIPQ and .80 for HDAQ which were quite appropriate and usable. Linear Regression Statistics, R and R2 were used to answer the three research questions while F- value was used to test the null hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed that: social and economic practices are significant predictors of Heads of Department accountability in public universities in south – south, Nigeria. It was concluded based on the findings that joint institutional internal practices are significant predictors of Heads of Department accountability in public universities in South – South, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that educational institution leaders in collaboration with HODs should truly understand the nature of their staff ethnic differences, identities, cultural practices, beliefs, norms and values in order to avoid conflict of interest among staff.