EFFECT OF ECONOMIC STRESS ON LECTURERS COMMITMENT TO ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES IN THE POST COVID-19 CLASSROOM

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic created a considerable impact on the educational system of every society. The prolonged movement restriction had made a significant gap in the academic calendar and caused an unprecedented relapse in learning. More so, the economic impact of the pandemic prompted a change in the socio-economic lifestyle of many people. In particular, the economic stress associated with the coronavirus could be having a devastating impact on teaching and learning in academia. Thus, the present study examined economic stress as a determinant of the lecturers commitment to academic activities in the post-Covid-19 classroom. A convenience sample of one hundred and two respondents pooled from three public tertiary institutions in Enugu State, Nigeria, participated in the survey. They completed a self-report measure of the economic stress scale and lecturer commitment questionnaire. The simple regression analysis performed on the data demonstrated that economic stress positively predicted the lecturers commitment to academic activities. Precisely, the finding revealed that economic stress explained 63.7% of the variation in lecturers commitment to educational activities.