A reflection on the scientific achievements and research orientations of Iranian educational management professors

The main purpose of this article is to reflect on the scientific achievements of educational administration academic members in Iranian public universities with an emphasis on recognizing their research orientations.

To achieve this goal, the documentary research method of systematic review type was used to the content of research-based articles conducted by academic members. After visiting the personal page of about 170 faculty members affiliated with groups in the field of educational administration, including the Department of Educational Sciences, and sampling by purposeful sampling method (with the criteria of having a doctorate in educational administration, educational planning, Higher education, education). Finally, 2440 articles published by 76 educational administration academic members were analyzed. In general, the data obtained in terms of the annual distribution of the frequency of articles published during the years 1987 to 2018, the share of academic members as "corresponding author" or "co-author", the rate of articles published nationally and internationally, the methodological approach (quantitative, qualitative and mixed) of the published articles and finally the thematic orientation of the published articles in different thematic areas and levels of general education, higher education and organizational education management were analyzed by open and centralized coding method. To provide credibility in the research, the techniques of maximum description, researcher self-review, peer review (expert), and research audit were used.

The findings indicate a sudden acceleration and increase in the number of articles published during the last ten years, especially between 1992 and 1996, which One of the main reasons can be attributed to the significant growth of graduate courses and the revision of the regulations of universities faculty members promotion with emphasis on increasing scientific productions. In addition, the results showed that in about 60% of research articles, professors of educational administration have the role of responsible author, and the thematic orientation of professors to educational administration is more focused on the level of higher education with 46% and then general education (education) With 33 and organizational training with 18%. Comparison of the share of educational administration professors in publishing articles in domestic and foreign journals indicates very low participation of educational administration professors at the international level (13%), especially in reputable journals compared to domestic journals (87%) is significant. In addition, the tendency to use quantitative approaches, especially correlational and survey research methods (74%) has affected the quality of published articles far from the idea of active knowledge production.