Abstract:
This study investigated the extent of concentration by the faculty members in the colleges of educational sciences at the Jordanian universities on research related to the development of the educational system. To achieve the purpose of this study, the researcher tried to answer the following two questions: 1. What was the degree of concentration of faculty members at the colleges of educational sciences at the Jordanian universities on research relevant to the educational development? 2. What were the priorities perceived by those faculty members at the colleges of educational sciences at the Jordanian universities to be concentrated on by the research dealing with educational development? The researcher developed a questionnaire of 56 items, classified in six categories: educational administration, school administration, educational supervision, the school teacher, school curricula, and evaluation and school tests. A random sample of (118) representing (65%) population of (181) educational sciences colleges at four Jordanian universities, out of the eight public universities was drawn. A test-retest reliability coefficient was found to be 0.85. Cronbach Alpha was also calculated and found to be 0.86. The study showed that the degree of concentration by faculty members according to priority was as follows: educational administration, school administration, school teacher, school curricula, evaluation and school tests, and educational supervision. The results showed that their priorities were classified into twenty items with accordance to their means. The means of these items varies between (3.87) and (3.57). The researcher selected the highest means of these items, which were: the suitability of educational polices to the educational democratic principles, the relation of educational objectives to the educational policies, and the effectiveness of teachers in school test design. This study concluded with the following recommendations: an essential need of cooperation among all faculty members is required to conduct research related to educational development, a vital need to increase research financial support, more research related to educational and school administration is needed, a cooperation between the Jordanian universities and the Ministry of Education in terms of research is necessary, and research focusing on test and measurement is recommended.
