22 Trend of research in Educational Administration: Gaps and priorities

Ms. Harpreet Kaur and Dr. Suman Saggu

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

1.  Introduction

 

2.  Learning outcomes

 

3.  Need of Research in Educational Administration

 

4.  Areas of Research in Educational Administration

 

5.  Trends of Research in Educational Administration in India

 

6.  Overall Trends of Research in Educational Administration

 

7.  Priorities in the field of Research in Educational Administration

 

8.  Neglected Areas

 

9.  Some problem-areas formulated on the basis of the goals of Education

 

10.  Summary

 

1. Introduction

Research in Educational Administration is an important area of Educational Research. It includes researches done on administrators, administration, administrative problems, comparative studies of different developed and developing countries, administration at different stages of education and many more. In India the research in this field got importance in 1940’s and is now conducted collaboratively, though on a small scale as compared to other areas. In educational administration researches, various areas have been ignored such as administrative climate, human relations, administrative behavior of principals, training of educational administrators etc. These gaps observed, need to be covered so that the education system functions appropriately and efficiently and becomes capable of achieving the aims and objectives which it has set.

 

2. Learning Outcomes

  • Understand the need of Research in Educational Administration
  • Identify the various areas of Research in Educational Administration
  • Discuss the recent trends of research in Educational Administration
  • Acquaint with latest information about the developments in the area of educational administration and research.
  • Identify various gaps in the educational administration research and
  • Know about vario us priorities in the field of Research in Educational Administration.

 

3. Need of Research in Educational Administration

The major need of Research in Educational Administration is:

  • To improve administrative patterns and practices to bring efficiency in school organisation and classroom management for the betterment of educational standards by improving instructions.
  • To  enable  educationists  and  educational  administrators  to  plan  improved developmental programmes
  • To modify the administrative patterns and organisational structures in accordance with the changing and over expenditure process in which new developments take place according to the changing needs of the nation.

 

4.  Areas of Research in Educational Administration

 

4.1 Investigation needed on the Administrator:

 

 

4.2 Research needed on the administration:

 

4.3 Studies in the Administrative Problems of Education:

4.4 Comparative Educational Administration:

 

4.5 Research in Administration of Different Stages of Education:

4.6 Research in Educational Finance:

 

4.7 Research in Educational Research:

 

4.8 Research concerning reforms of Educational Administration includes:

 

5. Trends of Research in Educational Administration in India

  •  The existing educational administration in India is essentially concerned with controlling. It is generally slow and hesitant, dilatory and time consuming. Unless the educational system is well equipped with appropriately trained modern managers, who in turn are well equipped with modern tools of analysis, research and evaluation, and at the same time with the latest information about the developments in the area of educational administration and research, it cannot function effectively and efficiently. All approaches to organization study and studies in the area of educational administration aim at maximum efficiency in the task for which the educational system is set up.
  • Educational administration as a subject of study and research has not received much attraction all over the world. Though it was introduced in teacher education programmes at B.Ed. and M.Ed. levels as a subject of study, the popular belief is that educational administration needs no special training and it is in the school of experience that educational administrators learn techniques and procedures of administration. Barring one or two universities, nowhere in India a separate department exists for Educational Administration.
  •  Administration of education, like any other field of administration, is oriented to human experiences and has concern about effective management, quality output and greater and faster development in the area that is administered. Earlier the emphasis in educational administration was laid upon direction and contro l, discipline and penal acts, strict and detached personnel administration and production emphasis. The outputs were conceived in a greater quantum, irrespective of the size and nature of the inputs. The system of educational administration was coloured with bureau cratism and saturated with the cult of authority and domination. The product was valued more than the process and the producers. And there was little concern for consumers too.
  • The research in educational administration at doctoral level had its small beginning in the early years of the nineteenth century. The dominant trend in these researches was description and evaluation of the role of educational structure and authorities and agencies, at different stages of education, with focus on the emer gent problems. The focal points were structure, officials, rules and regulations, inspection, control and finance, and the guiding philosophy stressed the operational aspect of the administration of education. The two of manifested dimensions of research in educational administration that cut right through the 1960’s were ‘historical’ and ‘comparative’. None of these studies reflected a concern for evolving some base of seeking support in the ‘theory’ of educational administration. Even today researches in educational administration hardly recognize the role of ‘theory of educational administration’ and they seldom use any model of administrative theory as the frame of reference.
  • In India, a small beginning in research in Educational Administration began in the 1940’s with the research by R.V. Parulekar and J.P Naik on primary education. A trend became visible in the 1950’s for more collaborative research in educational administration among professors and advanced graduate students, though on a small scale.
  • The change noticeable in some of the doctoral researches that were completed in late 1960’s or early seventies is comparatively more reliant on human relations approach. The administration and the supervisor’s jobs began to be viewed and evaluated in terms of not only their leadership acts, hierarchical organizational structure, authorities oriented production emphasis, maintenance of discipline and order through strict observation of rule and regulations, interference, hindrance and intimation but in terms of effective personnel management, satisfaction of staff’s social needs and psychological needs and considerate use of the skill of human engineering on the part of the administrators.
  • In the matter of approach and treatment of data welcome departures are noticeable. The treatment now tends to be more analytical and interpretive in place of the large scale use of description and aggregate compilation approach prevalent in the fifties and early sixties.
  • Sophisticated statistics also sometimes finds p lace in doctoral studies, but this trend is still feeble. Field investigations and case study methods have also been used at some places, though in part measures. In the areas like centre-state relationship,educational planning and financing, the use of ‘aggregate analysis’ methods are mainly based on field studies, case studies, critical and interpretative studies, of published and unpublished documents, authoritative ports, proceeding and decision making process and results have also emerged.
  • A recent trend that has emerged in research in educational administration, though still it is in embryonic stage is to study the administration of education as a cumulative effect of evaluation of the processes of administration involving facets such as planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, communicating, human relations and evacuation.
  • Another concern that has been reflected  in some doctoral thesis and research projects is to draw with discrimination, upon insights into administration derived from other fields and disciplines.

 

6. Overall Trends of Research in Educational Administration

The following observations were made from the studies reviewed from the surveys of educational research conducted by (CASE).

  1. There is a good deal of empirical research that has been done in the last few years on organization, administration and management of education.
  2. The empirical researches have attempted to study a variety of issues including institutional climate, effectiveness of leadership, administrative problems, teacher satisfaction, student attitudes and achievement etc.
  3. A variety of educational organisations have been studied, including secondary schools, colleges (private and government), research institutions, universities (ordinary and agricultural), open university systems as well as the district-level administration. There seems to be an increasing trend of studying colleges and universities although the total number of studies conducted are insignificant.
  4. The sampling procedures used in almost all the studies appear to be good. The generalizations are based on well acceptable sample sizes, some of which are randomly drawn and others are drawn purposively.
  5. The most frequently used instruments in these studies are Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire (OCDQ) of Halpin and Croft or Leadership Behaviour Description Questionnaires of M.L. Sharma. The researchers in a few cases have developed their own questionnaires. Researchers also seem to use interviews, observation and analysis of records. A large number of researchers have used more than one method.
  6. In quite a few cases the findings of the researchers provide significant insights for a local- level administration at school, college, or district level.

 

7.  Priorities in the field of Research in Educational Administration

Even a cursory look at the number of studies conducted revealed that the area has attracted the attention of a very large number of researchers in India. However, this should not be taken to imply that the area has been explored exhaustively. On the contrary, many of the studies are just peripheral to the main concern of educational management. Thus, the researchers have to set clear priorities in order to make future studies more meaningful and following areas could be given priority by establishing a relevance in concern to solutions sought for administration:

 

➢  leadership behavior

 

➢  organizational behavior

 

➢  conflict resolution

 

➢  group dynamics

 

➢  training of personnel

 

8. Neglected Areas

Some of the neglected areas of research in educational administration are:

 

1.  Administrative climate of educational institutions,

 

2.  Administrative behaviours of principals

 

3.  Human relations

 

4.  Communication

 

5.  Evaluation as a feedback device

 

6.  Institutional and decentralized educational planning

 

7.  The evaluation of the planning machinery in education

 

8. Training of educational administrators in managerial skills and procedures of planning, university governance, and operational effectiveness of its authorities, boards and committees, and decision making in universities.

 

9.  Educational administration as a social science discipline.

 

Let’s now discuss what has been ignored in the researches so far:

  • The researches have not touched themes that are critical for improving the quality of education, including its managerial efficiency. While most of the studies are of academic interest, they have limited value in bringing about changes in the Organizational Administration and Management of education.
  • There is a need to focus these studies on each category of institutions. There are too few in each category to be generalized.
  • Primary education is completely neglected by researchers in this area.
  • Researchers seem to take too many variables at a time for their study. Quite a few studies present innumerable findings. Consequently, one gets lost in them. It is useful to limit future researches to a few variables and study them exhaustively.
  • Action research is noticeably absent in the present scenario. Management is one field where there could be a lot of experimentation. Change-oriented studies should be encouraged in future.

 

9. Some problem-areas formulated on the basis of the goals of education:

These can be further elaborated and specified by the researchers themselves are as given below:

  1. Identifying goals of educational administration in India (or with reference to any other country).
  2. Identifying tasks of educational administration in a given social system.
  3. Identifying processes of educational administration.
  4. Analyzing concepts like educational administration, inspection, supervision, school management, administrative behavior, leadership and so on.
  5. Classifying types of organizations or functions and characteristics of administrative processes.
  6. Describing systematically the qualities or traits of effective administrator or successful leader or ideal inspector or popular headmaster and so on.
  7. Testing ability and aptitude in persons for the job of educational administrators or leader.
  8. Building personality scales for school administrators.
  9. Constructing measures for work-load of school administrators, for their effective performance, for their leadership role, for impact of supervision and inspection on schools and the like.
  10. Hypothetical studies and correlations of different variables involved in the administrative

 

10. Summary

To summarise, this module discusses the trends of research in educational administration identified gaps and priorities.Broadly, the areas which need further research may include

 

➢ decision-making

➢ communication

➢ leadership behavior

➢ organizational behavior

➢ conflict resolution

➢ group dynamics

➢ system analysis and net-work analysis

➢ educational planning and

➢ training of personnel

 

With regard to the research findings in these areas, it may safely be assumed that it may lead to maximum utilization of available human and material resources. At the same time researches in these areas may provide empirical grounds for planning and executing training programmes for educating the managers of educational enterprise which is the need of the day.

 

References

  • Desai, D.M. and Paramjit (2005). Educational Administration and Management, Survey report of Educational research, 455-463.
  • Rao, T.V. and Sridhar, B. (2007). Organization, Administration and Management of Education, Fifth Survey of Educational Research, 711-717.
  • Lulla, B.P. (2003). Research Need in Educational Administration and Management.72-85.
  • Valecha, G.K. and Shubha (2006). Organizational management and administration, A trend Report, 845-863.
  • Koul, L. (2009). Methodology of Educational Research, 4E new E. L. Koul Limited preview.
  • Buch, M.B. (1986), The Third Survey of Research in Education, New Delhi.
  • Distance  Education  and  Open   Learning:  A   Trend   Report  in   Sixth  Survey  of
  • Educational Research: 1993-2000, New Delhi: NCERT, pp. 166-191.
  • Sidhu, K.S. (2008) Methodology of Educational Research, Sterling.

Web links

  • www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdf/10.1108/0951354101105595
  • www.oecd.org/../Session%203_ Gaps%20in%20research%20and%20inn..
  • libguides.gwu.edu› Research Guides › Educational Administrationhttps://www.questia.com/library/education/educational–administration
  • https://www.ied.edu.hk/…/Developing%20tools%20for%20 research%20..
  • https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1133386350 https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1317577884
  • https://books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1467259594
  • www.skillscfa.org/images/pdfs/research/archive/…/gap_analysis_report.p.