Factors Associated with the Research Anxiety among Faculties of Knowledge and Information Science Departments of Iranian Universities

The present study was conducted to determine the factors associated with the research anxiety among the faculties of knowledge and information science departments of Iranian universities.
Material and The study sample consisted of all full-time faculties working in the knowledge and information science departments of Iranian universities (181 individuals) in the academic year of 2013-2014. Among them, 139 participants had good cooperation in filling out the questionnaire. In this survey-analytical study, data were collected using Higgins-Kotrlik research anxiety inventory. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20.
Findings: The results showed that about 63% of the respondents had high anxiety level and the remaining (37%) had the moderate level of anxiety. The results of the correlation tests revealed that two predictor variables of teaching skills and environmental factors had a negative significant relationship with the research anxiety. The results of the regression analysis indicated that the components of these two variables could explain 38% of the variance of anxiety research.
The findings illustrated that an anxiety can negatively affect the productivity of faculty members, leading to their slow improvement. It is clear that continuing such a situation may result in scientific recession in high education system; therefore, this system cannot continue to serve effectively its performance, namely, education and research in society.