Examining the Research output of Lecturers in Selected Public Universities in Ghana

The purpose of this study has been to examine the research output of lecturers in public universities in Ghana. A systematic literature review (SLR) was thus conducted to examine (a) productive researchers (b) subject area that attracts more research and (c) the type of research outlets for the teaching staff. Scopus electronic database was searched using the keywords; “University of Education winneba”, “Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology”, “University of Cape Coast” and “University of Ghana, Legon”. Peer-reviewed articles written in English language were considered for the study. The analysis revealed that medicine, agricultural, biological sciences and environmental science contributed to 49% out of 27 subject areas analysed. The conclusion is that researchers in other fields of study need to increase their research output. In addition, As expected the analysis revealed that article constituted the largest type of publication (6477 papers, 85%) and conference paper constitutes the fourth largest publication (243 papers, 3 %). The conclusion is that there is need for more conference paper presentation. Attending conference enables networking, collaborative research, and access to new knowledge, research topics and trends in a particular field of study. The general trend in number of publications indicates that publications from the four universities have been on the increase since 2003