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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications in Philippine Higher Education

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 121

International Forum
Vol. 18, No. 2
October 2015
pp. 121-141

FEATURE

Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications in

Philippine Higher Education Institutions

Safary Wa-Mbaleka

Abstract. One of the major expectations of the higher education

faculty is to generate knowledge through research and disseminate it
through scholarly conferences and journal publications. This
expectation has created much pressure on faculty members in higher
education, even more so in recent years, as more and more emphasis
is placed on presenting and publishing research. Using content
analysis as a design, this exploratory study is based on data from
higher education faculty members of 3 different universities about the
reasons they gave for having no or limited number of publications.
Findings reveal that the 7 most challenging factors preventing faculty
members from publishing enough or not publishing at all include
having limited time, lack of training on publication, fear of rejection,
lack of interest, faculty laziness, limited funds, and lack of
institutional support. This study helps raise scholars’ awareness on
the common issues expressed by the faculty, with the hope of starting
some constructive discourse in colleges and universities on how to
better support the work of publication. Some recommendations are
made to help colleges and universities tackle more effectively the 7
issues found in this study.

Keywords: Content analysis, Philippines, publishing, higher education

institutions, faculty, professors
122 Safary Wa-Mbaleka

Introduction
A century ago or so, the primary work of a higher education faculty member
was primarily to transmit knowledge. Traditional education was based on the
assumption that the educator knew everything and it was his or her job to transmit
that large wealth of knowledge into the students (Sherman, 1999). Today,
educators no longer own the knowledge by themselves. Students can now access
knowledge everywhere with the assistance of computer and information
technology. It is no longer unusual now to have students who know more about a
topic than their own professors. The role of the educator in higher education is no
longer about transmitting knowledge only, but more importantly to generate and
disseminate knowledge through scholarly conference presentations and journal
publications. Unfortunately, it has been consistently claimed over the years that
few faculty members are conducting research and even fewer are publishing
scholarly journal articles (Dumbrique & Alon, 2013; Fox, 1992; Hardé, 2014;
Nuqui & Cruz, 2012; Salazar-Clemeña, 2006; Wa-Mbaleka, 2014).
Higher education institutions have mushroomed all over the Southeast Asian
Region. In this region, the Philippines was classified second among countries with
the largest number of higher education institutions, after Indonesia (UNESCO
Institute for Statistics, 2014). According to the same report, the Philippines is the
third country with the largest number of higher education institutions in Asia,
after China and Indonesia. The same report shows the Philippines taking the
second place of the largest number of public higher education institutions (after
China) and the second place for private higher education institutes (after
Indonesia) in Asia. Although this fact may be seen positively from the perspective
of accessibility to higher education, it also means that more and more professors
in the Philippines are expected to conduct and publish research because they teach
in higher education institutions.
In the Philippines, professors are expected to focus on three major aspects:
teaching, research, and service to the community (Salazar-Clemeña & Almonte-
Acosta, 2007). While all the three can be taught in the graduate programs,
the implementation of conducting and publishing research probably receives less
training or attention. Yet, it is the role of a faculty member in higher education to
generate and disseminate knowledge (Commission on Higher Education [CHED],
2009). It is a failure on the faculty members’ part if they only teach, and do not
produce and share their own knowledge through scholarly avenues.
Due to consistently limited number of publications from higher education
faculty members, the aim of this study was to find the major factors that prevent
professors and instructors from publishing. Knowing these factors could be the
preliminary step in addressing the complex issue of the limited number of
publications in higher education in the Philippines. This paper discusses available
literature on publication in higher education, and then presents the current study

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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications 123

before proposing some recommendations to overcome each of the seven issues

found in the study.

Review of the Literature

Anyone who has been in a doctoral program or teaches in higher education
institutions has at a certain point been confronted with the pressure attached to
conducting and publishing research. Scare tactics such as having to publish or
perish have left many faculty members in higher education institutions unstable
and unsure about the continuity of their work. Despite the consistent
recommendations from research and the CHED that faculty member should
publish, the issue of lack of or limited publications has persisted over the years
(Acar, 2012). This review of the literature helps to place the topic of faculty
publications within a clear context. This review discusses the role of higher
education faculty members, the mandate of the CHED, and the current state of
research publication.

Role of Higher Education Faculty

As introduced earlier, the role of a faculty member in higher education in the
Philippines is threefold. It includes teaching, generating and disseminating
knowledge through research and other creative ways, and being involved in
serving the community through extension programs (Salazar-Clemeña &
Almonte-Acosta, 2007). The evaluation of colleges and universities from
accrediting bodies takes these three aspects into serious account. Academic
ranking in public universities also takes the three points into consideration.
Private institutions are also following suit.
On the teaching part, clear evaluation records of the programs and faculty
members’ delivery of instruction are considered to evaluate the quality of
education that is being offered at an institution. It makes sense why large
literature is produced on how to organize and deliver quality education in higher
education institutions all around the world (see for instance, Brown, 2014;
Greybeck, Gomez, & Mendoza, 2004; Ma, 2003; Murray, Gillese, Lennon,
Mercer, & Robinson, n.d.; Orlich et al., 2013; Smith & Ayers, 2006; Tucker,
Stewart, & Schmidt, 2003; Wa-Mbaleka, 2012). To teach in higher education
institutions, one must prove that they are academically prepared and they have the
expertise and experience required to do the task.
More often than not, faculty positions in higher education are based on the
candidates’ educational background and achievement, and their teaching
experience. Indirectly, a faculty member is primarily expected to teach before
thinking about the other two roles. It is common for a faculty member to be called
by their supervisor if his or her classes are left untaught, if students are in class

October 2015, Vol. 18, No. 2

124 Safary Wa-Mbaleka

without a professor, or if at the end of the semester, the faculty member is unable
to finish teaching the class and provide completed grade records within the
stipulated time. It is not uncommon, however, to find faculty members who
simply teach and never conduct any research or publish any paper and who have
never been asked to explain why. The same goes with service. Many faculty
members may never be required to show any service records but few are the
supervisors who would request for an explanation. This overemphasis on teaching
to the detriment of publication and provision of service to the community at large
is probably one of the reasons why faculty members do not feel the urge of
conducting research or disseminating it through conference presentations and
journal publications.
Coming back to Salazar-Clemeña and Almonte-Acosta (2007), all the three
aspects of higher education teaching must be promoted for a holistic service of the
faculty to their students and their surrounding communities. Education training
programs must adequately prepare prospective higher education faculty members
(Twale, 2013). Mentorship must be provided for further training of novice faculty
members (Phillips, Dennison, & Cox, 2015). In their training and in their
teaching, service to humanity must be emphasized (White, 2010).
Generation and publication of knowledge must take a more important role in
the work of faculty members in colleges and universities. Academic ranking and
accreditation of institutions are affected by research and scholarly publications of
the institutions (Wichian, Wongwanich, & Bowarnkitiwong, 2009). The culture of
research must be developed and promoted (Salazar-Clemeña & Almonte-Acosta,
2007). This recommendation, however, is not the only solution to this unending
issue. Looking at the issue from the perspective of the CHED may give a more
complete picture.

Mandate of the CHED

The CHED, the department that oversees higher education in the Philippines,
states that “higher education institutions are among the primary entities tasked to
generate, transmit, disseminate and apply knowledge. They are thus a major
component of the nation’s research and innovation system” (CHED, 2009, p. i).
This statement highlights the major role that higher education institutions play.
This task of generating knowledge, however, is usually expected from faculty
members, although many of them may see their primary job as that of teaching.
The CHED expects higher education institutions to help develop the nation
through conducting and disseminating research findings. Such a task cannot be
ignored. It cannot be considered a secondary task, as the progress of one whole
nation depends on it.
Basically, if higher education institutions do not focus on conducting and
publishing research, the whole nation’s economy may be at risk. The nation

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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications 125

expects this help from the college and university professors. Unfortunately, the
number of those publishing is significantly narrow in the Philippine higher
education institutions (Nuqui & Cruz, 2012; Salazar-Clemeña, 2006; Salazar-
Clemeña & Almonte-Acosta, 2007). Recommendations have been made over the
years on the need for more research and more publications (Salazar-Clemeña,
2006; Salazar-Clemeña & Almonte-Acosta, 2007; Wa-Mbaleka, 2014), but the
number of publications is still insignificant compared to the large number of
educators currently teaching in Philippine colleges and universities.
The CHED certainly has budget for research production and dissemination, as
seen on their summary of the fund utilization (CHED, 2015). A close look at the
Commission’s website shows that there are calls for grant. It is intriguing,
however, to note that for the past five years, there are fewer and fewer reports on
how the money was utilized nationwide on research. The report shows fewer and
fewer research money being utilized. Without specific research looking into that,
no one can tell whether the Commission did not allot money for research and
development, or money was made difficult to access, or the higher education
institutions and the faculty members did not apply for the grants.
Other than simply focusing on training and promoting the culture of
publication in colleges and universities, it may be important to go back to the
drawing board to understand better the root of the problem. It is important to hear
from the faculty members themselves as to what they consider as the major
factors behind this major issue of limited publications. Without properly
diagnosing the problem, strategies may be promoted over and over without any
real positive impact.

Current State of Research Publication

Previous research and publications have demonstrated a number of problems
linked with publication in higher education institutions. To understand this
complex issue better, several publications have dealt with inactivity of faculty in
publications (Boyer, Moser, Ream, Braxton, & Associates, 2016; Salazar-
Clemeña & Almonte-Acosta, 2007; Wa-Mbaleka, 2014), disconnect between
research or theory and practice (Bero et al., 1998; Boyer et al., 2016; Boykin &
Noguera, 2011; Ioannidis, 2005; Saxena, Pratap, & Saraceno, 2004), little
visibility of Filipino scholars on the international arena of scholarly publications
(Salazar-Clemeña, 2006; Valencia & Gonzalez, 2007), quality of publications
(Ioannidis, 2005; Japos, 2012), lack of cooperation between universities and
industries (Leon, 2011), and limited financial resources for research and
development (Justimbaste, 2004). All these topics relate to what the scholars in
higher education institutions must keep in mind in the process of publication.
The struggle goes on with publications. The fact that the majority of faculty
members are not publishing scholarly articles makes this discussion persist as

October 2015, Vol. 18, No. 2

126 Safary Wa-Mbaleka

scholars try to find the ways and strategies to obtain everyone’s support. As more
and more research is conducted, the chance can be increased to see stronger
connection between theory and practice, and between research and people’s
practical life (Saxena et al., 2004; Titler, 2007). As more publications come out,
the likelihood will be increased for the Philippine visibility on the international
publication arena. Quality of publications cannot be discussed when there are few
people publishing. The culture of writing for publication must be developed all
over the nation first. To see the Philippines rise steadily economically will depend
on more collaboration between universities and industries. Faculty members will
need to refocus their research and publications on the real needs of the industry
and the society at large. After all, Philippine colleges and universities are called
upon to sustain the nation’s development and progress through research (CHED,
2009). Last, the resources need to be made available for research and
development, and publication. The lack of resources to support this important
endeavor can only continue to contribute to limited publications.
All these issues mentioned above are intertwined. They all depend, however,
on a good understanding of the root of the problem of limited publications.
Without analyzing the perspective of the faculty members, who are expected to be
the first producers of research and writers of publishable articles, it may be a
futile effort to try to address the issue. This study, therefore, was conducted with
the purpose of hearing the voices of the faculty from three different universities
about factors preventing them from publishing or publishing enough.
Additionally, it is the purpose of this paper to propose some practical strategies to
address the issue of publications.
The research questions of this study were intentionally left out because it was
based on content analysis as the main design. It is believed that content analysis is
“used as a systematic framework for exploring a body of content without first
formulating initial hypotheses or research questions” (Thayer, Evans, McBride,
Queen, & Spyridakis, 2007, p. 268). Only one question was asked of the research
participants: that of establishing why they were not publishing or not publishing
enough.

Methodology
In trying to understand the factors that prevent college and university
educators from publishing, this study was conducted using content analysis as the
main design. Specifically, the conventional content analysis design, as proposed
by Hsieh and Shannon (2005), was utilized. This design was preferred because it
allows the researchers to use an inductive approach to data analysis, when data
has no predetermined variables or theories. This study had no predetermined
variables. It was its purpose to identify the variables that prevent faculty members
from researching, publishing or publishing enough.

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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications 127

Research Setting
This study was based on qualitative data from professors in three different
higher education institutions in the Philippines. The first institution is a large
private college located in Laguna Province of the Philippines, situated in Luzon
(or the northern part of the Philippines). The college offers primarily different
types of engineering programs. The second institution is a large public university
in Leyte Province, located in the Visayas (the center of the Philippines). This
university offers primarily teaching, natural science, and other social science
programs. The last college was a private, church-owned college in Negros
Occidental, in the Visayas. It offered most programs in social sciences.

Sample and Sampling

In total, 173 faculty members from the three higher education institutions
participated in the study. The total population was targeted in each of the three
institutions. I was asked to give an institution-wide seminar on how to write for
publication in each of the three institutions. Everyone who attended the one-day
seminar therefore participated in the study, as part of the activities of the seminar.
Only those who were absent at the time of the activity did not participate. The
first college (referred to as School1), located in Laguna Province, had 50
participants. The second institution (or School2), a university in Leyte Province,
provided 53. The last one (or School3), a private church-owned college in Negros
Occidental Province, had 70 participants.

Data Collection
As part of the different activities that the faculty members had to complete for
the seminar on publication, they had to write individually and privately on an
index card their answer to the prompt “write down two main reasons why you are
not publishing or publishing enough”. They were told not to write their name
there. They were not told at first that this was part of a research study, as the
activity fitted in well with the other activities of the day. This decision was made
to avoid giving the participants a chance to rationalize their answers. By
withholding this information from them at the beginning and asking them not to
write their names on the index cards, I hoped to receive more honest answers.
Participants were given 3 to 5 minutes to write their answers down. After all
index cards were collected, they were informed that their answers would be
included in an ongoing research study. They were given the choice to have their
index card removed from the stack of index cards if they wished but no one did.
This step was taken to guarantee voluntary participation, which gives participants
the right to withdraw from the study any time they wish.

October 2015, Vol. 18, No. 2

128 Safary Wa-Mbaleka

Because the instrument was made of only one question with only one purpose
of knowing why college and university professors are not publishing or
publishing enough, no validation of the instrument was necessary. This practice
was especially understandable as this question was part of many other
instructional activities that were part of the one-day seminar.
By the end of the seminar, some preliminary results were shared with all the
participants of the seminar. These were based simply on emerging trends from the
collected index cards. A promise was made to share the complete findings of the
study on the Facebook group that they were all encouraged to join as part of the
seminar. The study would be shared on that group only after publication, as the
group is already functional. Additionally, the study would be shared with the
highest administrators involved in organizing the seminar so that they could share
it with all the faculty members of the participating institutions.

Data Analysis
Both manifest analysis, using word or theme count, and latent analysis, or use
of underlying meaning, were used as proposed by Thayer et al. (2007). Some data
was clearly presented, such as lack of funds, lack of training, which was easily
used for manifest analysis. Some other data, however, required a keener look into
the underlying meaning. For instance, a sentence like “my university doesn’t
really care if I don’t publish” was interpreted and coded as “lack of institutional
support”. The sentence “teaching and advising eat up all the time; no time lift for
research or writing” was coded as “limited time”. A sentence like “my English is
not good” or “I struggle with English” was coded as “fear of English”. For such
data, latent analysis was thus used.

Results
The data presented below is grouped in the different reasons given for
faculty’s limited or lack of publications. All in all, 14 reasons were given. Table 1
provides the synthesis of the data.
All in all, 173 faculty members from three higher education institutions
participated in this study. Their detailed demographic data were not collected
because they were not the primary focus of this study. Additionally, the
instrument used was part of the activities for a seminar that would have drawn the
participants’ attention. If other demographic details were required from the
participants, they could have given rationalized answers instead of honest ones.

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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications 129

Table 1
Factors Preventing Faculty Members from Publishing
Factor School1 School2 School3 TOTAL
1. Limited time 28 20 45 93
2. Lack of training 22 38 28 88
3. Fear of rejection 9 9 17 35
4. Lack of interest in writing 3 4 27 34
or research
5. Laziness 3 4 22 29
6. Lack of funds 2 4 10 16
7. Lack of institutional support 3 7 4 14
8. Fear of English 2 3 8 13
9. Lack of topics 2 - 8 10
10. No solid foundation in 5 2 1 8
research
11. Lack of mentoring 3 2 1 6
12. No reading habit 1 2 1 4
13. No financial gain 1 - 1 2
14. No internet access - - 1 -
Total participants 53 50 70 173*
Note: *173 is solely the total number of participants of this study.
From Table 1, it is evident that although the struggles that faculty members
face in the three institutions are the same, their experiences are perceived at
different intensity. For instance, the first factor leading to limited publications in
the School1 and School3 is limited time, while in School2 it is lack of training.
Looking at the third factor, School1 and School2 share the same factor; that is,
fear of rejection, while School 3’s third factor is lack of interest in writing or
research.
Because of the discrepancies found in the ranking of the different factors, the
total was preferred from the three institutions to come up with an aggregate that
reflects all the three together. Data presented in Table 1 was provided for readers
to see the distribution of each institution.

October 2015, Vol. 18, No. 2

130 Safary Wa-Mbaleka

Personal decision and preference considered the first 50% of the factors that
came from the three institutions to be the main focus of the discussion of the
remainder of this paper. The rest of this section therefore discusses the seven
major factors limiting faculty’s publications. Some practical solutions are
recommended for each of the factors in the next section.
For the findings of this study, the seven major factors preventing faculty
members from publishing (enough) include limited time, lack of training, fear of
rejection, lack of interest in writing or research, laziness, lack of funds, and lack
of institutional support. Before, discussing the recommendations proposed in the
next section, it is important to clarify each of the seven factors, as presented in the
data from the participants.
On limited time, it was surprising to hear (informally) at one of the three
institutions that some faculty members are asked to teach more than 24 units of
teaching load every semester. Such a load would certainly leave no more room for
anything else. In addition, many faculty members teaching at the graduate level
are expected, if not required, to be part of the thesis or dissertation committees.
They must be reading several theses and dissertations and provide needed
advising to students who are in the writing process. From human perspective, it is
definitely not practical to even think about research and publication with such a
work overload.
Lack of training turned out to be the second most important factor preventing
faculty members from writing for publication. One may wonder how someone
becomes a college or university faculty member without knowing how to write for
publication. Well, unfortunately, this finding reflects the reality in these three
institutions. It may not be too different from most other institutions, according to
existing research (Boykin & Noguera, 2011). According to previous research,
lack of training is based on two major issues: no such a solid training in the
graduate education and limited financial support for such an endeavor from the
CHED (Calma, 2009, 2010). It is not customary for many universities to require
students to publish at least one article in a scholarly journal before the students
can graduate. Since publication is not a graduation requirement in many
institutions, it is therefore understandable that not much attention is given to
training graduate students in writing for publication. Consequently, a significant
number of people graduate without being taught how to write for publication.
University ends up becoming something like an upgraded high school.
Lack of training and knowledge needed to write for publication makes the
faculty members feel afraid of trying and unprepared for the daunting task before
them. No wonder, fear of rejection was the third factor in the data. Perhaps
restating: Participants in this study expressed fear of rejection in the event of
submitting papers that may be assessed as not meeting acceptable publishing
standards. In addition to the lack of training, maybe this fear of being rejected

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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications 131

may be associated with the eastern culture of the fear of losing face (DeCapua &
Wintergerst, 2004; McInnes, 2012). In many eastern cultures, people can do all it
takes to avoid being ashamed in public. To avoid losing face through the
publication process, therefore, may lead some to simply avoid submitting a draft
for publication considerations.
Lack of interest in writing or research was the next factor. This factor seemed
to be linked to two other issues. First, people would not be interested in something
they do not know how to do. So, if they do not know how to write for publication
and they feel unprepared in conducting research, they would most definitely lose
interest in writing and conducting research. Second, a number of participants
indicated that they lacked interest in writing for publication because it is not a
lucrative activity; yet, this activity is a time-consuming task. If the faculty
members feel that teaching an extra course financially benefits them more and
faster than writing an article, they might simply be drawn more easily to adding
extra teaching load than conducting research or publishing scholarly articles.
Laziness was another factor that came up in the top seven. This factor was
unexpected before the beginning of the study. For all the participants who
indicated laziness as the major issue, no additional explanation was provided.
Three possible related issues can be argued here. First, it is possible for the
participants to be lazy because they do not know how to write for publication.
Second, they may be lazy because the activity itself is not lucrative and they feel
that they can do more lucrative or more exciting activities. Last, it might be
because they are already overloaded with other academic activities. When they
have some free time, they just wish to rest. They translate this rest as laziness.
Whatever the reason is, a number of participants felt that laziness plays an
important role in the problem of limited publications.
Next, lack of funds was the sixth factor. The ranking of this factor was
surprising. When one talks informally with people, this issue always comes up.
Data from all the participants, however, revealed that there are more serious
issues than funding. Limited financial resources for conducting research,
publication, and remuneration for publications, prevent some faculty members
from publishing. Even the few faculty members who may know how and have the
zeal to publish may lose their passion when they find that there is little to no
financial support. After all, it is also for the credibility of the institution that their
faculty members publish scholarly articles. It helps build the prestige and quality
of their institution. Administrators, therefore, need to provide financial support for
this endeavor (Salazar-Clemeña & Almonte-Acosta, 2007).
Lack of institutional support was the last factor found in this study, just as
highlighted in earlier research (see Wichian et al., 2009). While administrators
may often encourage faculty members to conduct research and/or publish
scholarly articles, they often fail to sustain that encouragement or requirement.

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132 Safary Wa-Mbaleka

They seem to know well that with the inexplicable teaching and advising load of
the faculty members, it is understandably difficult to have a considerable amount
of publications. They seem to understand that, without proper financial support
and training, faculty members may not be motivated to undertake the work of
publishing scholarly articles. It might also be that they forget about supporting
this important task because they too are busy with other important work-related
issues.
The seven factors presented here are all interconnected. Some solutions can
help with more than one problem. One problem, on the other hand, may need
more than one solution. The proposed solutions in the next section are not at all
meant to be exhaustive. They reflect my personal opinion that needs to be tested
with further research. They are informed with personal experience as a faculty
member in different colleges and universities in different countries over a number
of years, a prolific writer of scholarly articles, an editor of two scholarly journals,
and peer reviewer of several scholarly journals on four continents (North
America, Europe, Asia, and Africa).

Proposed Recommendations
The proposed solutions here are meant primarily for the Philippines.

Table 2
Recommendations for the Seven Major Factors Leading to Limited Publications

Factors Recommendations
1. Limited time De-loading, balancing roles of faculty
members: teaching, research, & service
2. Lack of training Providing training on research & writing for
publication, & mentoring
3. Fear of rejection Providing regular training on research &
writing for publication, & mentoring
4. Lack of interest in writing/ Revising remuneration policies about research
research & publication
5. Laziness Promoting mentoring, better reward policies,
& inspiration of speakers
6. Lack of funds Providing better financial support for research
& publication
7. Lack of institutional support Designing & implementing clearer guidelines
& policies on research & publication

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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications 133

Table 2 presents the seven factors and their proposed recommendations. They
may or may not work depending on different factors of each institution and
different faculty members. They should therefore be taken as such—
recommendations, not required guidelines.
For the issue of limited time, it is obvious that de-loading, or reducing the
teaching and advising load of the university faculty members should be one of the
best strategies to deal with it. Faculty members in higher education institutions
cannot be expected to teach the same number of hours as K-12 educators (or even
teach more than them in some cases) and still publish scholarly articles. In the
case of the Philippines, where the number of colleges and universities is
significantly high, adjunct faculty should be hired to help teach a number of
courses to allow full-time faculty members to have enough time for publications.
The CHED needs to regulate the number of hours that a higher education faculty
member should teach every year. Additionally, de-loading should happen
whenever a faculty member presents a complete plan for research or scholarly
writing. The plan should outline exactly what and how much will be written in a
semester. The faculty member would then be held accountable to keep that plan
for the whole semester and demonstrate at the end that he or she complied with it.
Last, de-loading will help balance the faculty member’s responsibilities of
teaching, conducting and producing research, and providing service to the
community. If overemphasis continues to be only on teaching, service and writing
for publication can be expected to continue declining. Time must be intentionally
created and carefully planned for faculty scholarly writing.
Lack of training can be dealt with in two ways, for both research capability
training and scholarly writing training. Holding regular seminars on these two
aspects within the school can help train a large number of faculty members at
once. Inviting a trainer to the school may actually be more financially sustainable
than sending a handful of faculty members to attend a seminar in another city,
which requires paying flights, hotels, and expensive registration fees, for just few
faculty members. The writing seminars would be specifically focused on how to
write for publication. The research seminars would be a refresher on research
methods, introduction to new research designs, or how to write a research grant
proposal. The second approach should be to plan and promote some mentoring
relationships where faculty members with large experience of publishing can
mentor novice ones. In fact, all novice faculty members could be assigned to such
expert faculty from the very beginning of their career in a college or university.
This approach could lead to more sustainability in the work of publications.
Lack of interest in writing or research may be the result of fear of being
rejected and also the lack of knowledge. In this case, the solutions proposed above
would address the problem. If, however, the problem is based on the fact that the
incentives attached to publishing are not attractive to the faculty members, the

October 2015, Vol. 18, No. 2

134 Safary Wa-Mbaleka

academic leaders in higher education may need to revise the remuneration

policies about conducting research and publishing scholarly articles. Just as
faculty members are remunerated for teaching, they should see clear guidelines on
the remuneration of their publications. This is probably what administrators do
not wish to budget for; as a result, motivation is keeps going down. It may be
different for service because service entails voluntary and free assistance to other
people. The time required to conduct research and to publish scholarly work,
however, needs to be assessed more carefully so that proper remuneration can be
given.
Laziness is a problem that is difficult to address as it depends much more on
personal effort than any outside influence. Mentoring may be used to motivate
faculty members who feel lazy. Such an encouragement would need to be coupled
with better reward policies for faculty who publish scholarly articles. Some type
of motivational speakers on the topic of publishing could be utilized to inspire
such faculty members. Regular and consistent “public recognition” of faculty
members who publish may also be used as part of the reward system that can
motivate those with the problem of laziness.
Lack of funds for research and publication need to be addressed. Institutions
need to put in place a better budgetary support for research and publication.
Faculty members should receive more training on how to write grant proposal.
The institutions should have a grant writing office to generate funds from
industries, the CHED, and from other countries. Such a responsibility should not
be simply placed on the shoulders of the institution’s research department; as such
a department is usually busy with guiding both students and faculty in their
ongoing research. The CHED should intentionally set aside a budget for more
training on grant writing and make research grants much more accessible to the
faculty members. Such an approach would strengthen the relationship between the
faculty and their institution, faculty or institution and the surrounding industries
(thus closing the gap between research and practice), and institutions and the
CHED.
Lack of institutional support came up as last on the list of the top seven
factors that negatively affect publications in higher education institutions. All
faculty members seem to know well that scholarly publication is expected from
them. Education leaders seem to be so busy with all other academic requirements
of the institution that they forget to promote and support the work of publication.
They should design and implement clear guidelines and policies on research and
publication. The institution must have a clear research agenda and regularly
encourage their faculty members to conduct research to fulfill that agenda. Such
an agenda needs to be regularly updated to meet the new reality of social issues
and needs of the industries for better national development and better fit for
international competitiveness.

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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications 135

Four Levels of Change

For the proposed solutions to lack of publications in higher education
institutions, work must be done at four different levels. All the four levels must be
strengthened for better and consistent results. Failure in one of the four can still
have negative effect on scholarly publication.
The first level involves providing training on scholarly writing at the graduate
level. All graduate students should take at least one course on how to write for
publication. The course must be one of the graduation requirements. To pass the
course, each student needs to publish one article. As part of the mentorship
process, students can first publish with their own professors before they publish
individually. Students who thus publish before graduating could develop scholarly
writing skills that could help them in their thesis or dissertation writing, make
them more marketable for future faculty position, and create in them the desire to
continue publishing even long after their graduation. People who publish before
they graduate are probably more likely to continue publishing after they graduate
than those who do not.
The second level is that of the faculty members. They need to have
opportunities and be required to attend capability-building seminars on both
research and writing for publication. They must be involved in some mentoring
programs where published authors mentor novice faculty members. Faculty
members should focus on the institution’s research agenda, and such an agenda
should focus on addressing the real issues of the industries and society at large.
Faculty members need to know that it may be for their own good to invest some
resources in their own learning when it comes to strengthening their own research
and scholarly writing skills. After all, when they accepted the position of faculty,
they knew all too well that publishing is expected from them. Such a personal
investment, however, does not and should never replace the responsibility of the
institution and the CHED to fund capability-building activities in these areas.
The third level is the one of the institution itself. It should provide regular
effective capability-building opportunities. These activities should be well
budgeted every year. The education leaders need to work on de-loading the
faculty members so that more time can be available for scholarly writing. They
must provide better incentives and better support for scholarly publication. They
must set clear policies and guidelines for the expectations they have for all faculty
members in the matter of publishing. They might also wish to give three options
to faculty members (50% teaching + 50% research, 75% teaching + 25% research,
or 25% teaching + 75% research). In this case, each faculty member could choose
the option that fits best for his or her preference. Such a plan could be revised
every 3 to 5 years because the preference may change over the years. Last,
through the linkages that the institution has with the industries, the faculty
members need to be involved more in using research to address the problems of

October 2015, Vol. 18, No. 2

136 Safary Wa-Mbaleka

the industries and the national problems in different fields. Government and
research grants could therefore be made accessible to faculty members. As an
outcome of such research, papers would be published on practical ways to help
the nation progress effectively.
The last level is that of the CHED. This national entity should improve the
budget of research in higher education institutions. It should have a stronger
relationship with these institutions to be able to develop more effective capability-
building programs that can empower faculty members in better research and
better quality scholarly publications. It should set more realistic expectations for
these institutions so that when these expectations are presented to them, it is
obvious that they are achievable. Once these are achieved, the CHED can
progressively raise the expectations. Setting expectations beyond the reach of
faculty members can be a factor to demotivate them from conducting research and
publishing. Last, the CHED needs to create linkages with other ministries of
higher education in the ASEAN Region. Such linkages will help make the
Philippines more competitive in research and publications, as far as higher
education institutions are concerned.

Conclusion
This study has presented seven major factors negatively affecting scholarly
publishing in three institutions. In order of priority, they include limited time, lack
of training, fear of rejection, lack of interest in writing and research, laziness, lack
of funds, lack of institutional support. Recommendations were made including de-
loading, providing capability building in research and scholarly writing, designing
and promoting clear research and publication guidelines and policies, designing or
revising remuneration policies for research and publication, mentoring, among
others. The recommendation was that these strategies should be implemented at
four levels: the graduate student, the faculty member, the institution, and the
CHED. It is expected that work must be done at all the four levels to be able to
see effective and sustainable improvement in the area of scholarly publishing.
Three major recommendations can be made here for practice. First, more
resources must be allocated in each institution to provide capability-building
training on research and scholarly writing, for de-loading of faculty for them to
have more time for research and publication, for more funding for research and
publication, and for improved incentives needed for research and publication.
Second, more linkages are needed between faculty members, institutions, and
industries to make research more relevant to practice. The CHED needs to be
more involved with individual institutions in providing much-needed capability
building on scholarly writing, grant writing, research grants, and linkages with
other ASEAN countries.

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Factors Leading to Limited Faculty Publications 137

Last, personal commitment from every faculty member is definitely important

in addressing the issue of limited publications. The faculty members need more
personal determination and dedication to conduct research and publish scholarly
articles. They need to remember that publishing is expected from them just as
teaching and service are. Publishing is not only about personal gain in rewards
and incentives; it is also improving the ranking of the institution, learning more
relevant information that is fit for teaching and service, and addressing real social
issues to make this world a better place to live. Indeed, “conducting research and
publishing it is an act of love for people” (Wa-Mbaleka, 2014, p. 125). It should
be seen as service to the world community because once an article is published, it
can be read virtually all over the world and thus potentially help address the
problem worldwide.
Other scholars interested in this topic may wish to plan a larger study with the
seven factors found in this study. The proposed strategies can be used in another
study to test them in different higher education institutions. Last, further studies in
other institutions are needed for a more complete understanding of factors
preventing faculty members from conducting research in general and from
publishing (or publishing enough) in particular.

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Safary Wa-Mbaleka, EdD, PhD

Associate Faculty, Education Department &
Editor of International Forum journal
Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies
Silang, Cavite, Philippines
Wa-MbalekaS@aiias.edu

October 2015, Vol. 18, No. 2

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