ACADEMIC STAFFS PERCEPTIONS TOWARD PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL SYSTEM IN HIGHER EDUCATION (CASE OF SAMARA UNIVERSITY)

Effective performance appraisal system in higher education institution would lead to the growth and development of its academic staffs if implemented properly and perceived by the staffs that it creates benefits to them. The purpose of this study was to explore academic staffs of the Samara University perceptions toward performance appraisal system with the aim to identify trends and areas for further improvements. For the purpose of this study descriptive research design was employed. The researcher used stratified random sampling to stratify all participants into seven colleges and one school of law. Of 968 academic staffs, 283 participants having two and more experience of teaching were selected from each stratum proportionally by using purposive sampling to select respondents with desired teaching experience. Both primary and secondary data were collected. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaire from 261 academic staffs having two and more teaching experience in the University which resulted in response rate of 92%, for 261 out of the 283 responded to the distributed questionnaire. Secondary data were collected from previous studies and used as reference. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study showed that most academic staffs viewed overall performance appraisal system as ineffective and dissatisfied with it .In addition, lack of feedback on regular basis from their departments and dissatisfaction with students and peer evaluation results were seen as major problems. To improve these problems, the study recommends implementation of effective performance appraisal, providing timely feedback and creating awareness to students and peers regarding the use of performance appraisal.