Faculty member's opinion regarding faculty development needs and the ways to meet the needs Print

Professional development of faculty members is considered as one of the aspects of improving academic quality. Therefore, it is of great importance to identify the professional development of faculty members. This study aimed at determining the needs of professional development among faculty members in four functional areas, namely educational, research, executive, and communicational areas. Regarding the purpose, this research was an applied study and regarding the data collection was a descriptive-analytic one. The population under study included 104 faculty members. Fifty faculty members were selected through stratified sampling from Faculty of Education and Psychology, Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering in a large public university. Research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire which included two sections. The first section related to the skills of professional development where the faculty members’ opinions about four skills of professional development within two levels were gathered. The second section, in addition, related to the methods for meeting faculty members’ needs. Four professors confirmed the validity of questionnaire; also its reliability was calculated by Alpha Cronbach. The Alpha Cronbach for the questionnaire of skills of professional development was. 92 in existing level and. 98 in optimal level. Similarly, Alpha Cronbach of. 97 was confirmed for the questionnaire of the methods of meeting the needs of professional development. The data were analyzed using non-parametric statistical procedures, Chi-square and Wilcoxon. The findings implied the needs in four areas of educational, research, executive and communicational skills. Furthermore, the results indicated that the needs existed regardless of the type of college, academic rank of faculty member and employment status. Faculty members stated their opinions about the ways to meet their needs in four categories as (a) exchanging experience with other universities, (b) holding long-term training courses, (c) holding training workshops and (d) establishing communities of practice. Furthermore the need for strengthening managerial and administrative skills was also emphasized.