Abstract

This study explores academic staff’s perception of performance measurement at selected universities in the USA, UK, Australia, Nigeria and universities in South Africa. The primary objective of this article is “to develop a conceptual model which can be applied to South African universities in developing educational policy” based on empirical evidence. It explores the scholarship of performance management and questions if lectures’ performance can be measured using the seven performance dimensions pointed out in the literature review. The author also argued for the importance of performance management in enhancing the effectiveness of lecturers in their work. The author avers that, following a thorough literature review, it could be logically concluded that a mixed or integrated model of performance measurement can be used to evaluate both competencies and performance outputs of lecturers. Furthermore, the statistical analysis on perspectives of lecturers from selected universities in the United Kingdom, United States, Nigeria, Australia and South Africa, confirmed that lectures’ performance can be measured. The basis of this measurement can  be  the seven performance dimensions, namely knowledge; student-teacher relations; organisational skills; communication skills; subject relevance, assessment procedure and utility of assignments. The said dimensions attracted a Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of above 0.70.

Key words: Lecturer’s performance measurement dimensions, performance management, performance evaluation, performance appraisal, performance assessment, integrated performance management model.