Influence of Professional Development on Career Growth of Senior Non-teaching Staff in Public Universities in Kenya: a Case of the University of Nairobi

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of professional development on career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities in Kenya: A case of the University of Nairobi. The study sought to examine the influence of further education on career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities, the influence of professional training on career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities, the influence of experience on career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities and the influence performance appraisal on career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities. This study intended to fill the knowledge gap on influence of professional development on career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities in Kenya. Theories which were used in this study are; theory of change and decision Theory. The study employed a descriptive survey research design which was used because the method has the potential to provide a lot of information from quite a large sample of individuals. The target population was 324 with the sample size of the population being 176. In this case the sample selected was deemed to be representative enough of the whole population and therefore valid and genuine generalizations were made. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze data. Quantitative data was tabulated and analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation. Fisher test was used to compute and establish degree of relationship between the variables. The findings depicted that career growth, further education, professional training and performance led to professional development on career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities by factor of 0.114, -0.309, 0.596 and -0.093 with P values of 0.471, 0.918, 0.000 and 0.000. At 5% level of significance and 95% level of confidence, this is statistically significant as the P-Value is lower than 0.05. The study concludes that there is significant positive relationship between further education, professional training, work experience and performance appraisal leading to the career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities. Recommendation of the study is that the institution should support non-teaching staff who want to further their education in order for them to realize professional development. Education expenses for furthering education should be reduced in order for many non-teaching staff to be able to further their education. Further research therefore, is required in order to determine other factors that influence career growth of senior non-teaching staff in public universities.