QUALITY OF WORK-LIFE AS A PREDICTOR OF LECTURERS' JOB ENGAGEMENT IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract The study examined quality of work-life as a predictor of lecturers’ job engagement in Colleges of Education in South East, Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. A correlational research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised all lecturers from College of Education in South East, Nigeria. The study sample consisted of 426 lecturers drawn using a multistage sampling procedure. Two sets of instruments, titled "Quality of Work-Life Questionnaire (QWLQ)” and “Lecturers’ Job Engagement Questionnaire (LJEQ)" were used for data collection. Three experts face-validated the instruments: two from the Department of Educational Management and Policy and one from the Measurement and Evaluation Unit in the Department of Educational Foundations, all from the Faculty of Education at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Cronbach's alpha method was used to assess the instruments’ internal consistency, yielding reliability coefficients of 0.78 and 0.80 for Clusters A and B of QWLQ, respectively, with an overall coefficient of 0.79, whereas 0.81 was obtained for LJEQ. The researchers, along with three research assistants, collected data using a direct approach, achieving a 96% return rate. Simple regression was used to answer the research questions and test hypotheses. The study's findings revealed, among others, that incentive and safety practices strongly and significantly predict lecturers’ job engagement in Colleges of Education in South East Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others, that the Management of Colleges of Education should prioritize incentive practices through annual ceremonies to recognize the efforts of outstanding lecturers and improve their job engagement. Keywords: Quality of Work-Life, Lecturers, Job Engagement, Incentive Practices, Safety Practices