A Contributory Study into the Evaluation of Psychometric Properties of the Academic Authority Questionnaire among Faculty Members

 Researchers and faculty members are faced with the achievement of academic authority in higher education and fulfilling the needs seems indispensable. In this study, attitudes of the faculty memberschr('39') Hamadan University of Medical Sciences (UMSHA) towards the factors of academic authority in a researcher-made questionnaire was solicited. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the academic authority questionnaire among faculty members.

 This cross-sectional analytical study was conducted on 205 faculty members of UMSHA in 2018 using multivariable factor analysis. The instrumentation was a 17-item questionnaire of academic authority. All the analyses were at value of p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

 After completing the questionnaire by the faculty members, factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the effective components of the authority. It is of note that 125 (61%) units were male and 170 (82.8%) had a PhD degree. The mean age of the samples was 43.7 with a standard deviation of ±8.1. The results of validity and reliability test confirmed the content validity and showed acceptable level of internal correlation of questionnaire (CVI≥0.78, Cronbachchr('39')s alpha=0.948). The analysis of the major components with varimax rotation, according to the KMO and the eigenvalues, three factors were extracted which accounted for 71.16% of the total variance.

 Findings showed three important components. Along these lines, according to views of faculty members, to achieve academic authority, the ability to develop sciences, the meager relationship between theory and practice in the professional fields are the major challenges in higher education.