Session Information
09 SES 02 B, Assessment in Higher Education (Part 2)
Paper Session
Contribution
Universities are places where scholarly activities are promoted and performed (Ramsden, 1994). These scholarly activities and research production are so critical that they are the main determinants of university rankings. Research productivity refers to the total research performed by academics (Print & Hattie, 1997). Studies on research productivity have started to increase since the early 1970s (Dundar & Lewis, 1998). There have been an enormous number of research that investigate the factors affecting research productivity. These factors included research self-efficacy, marital status, and gender (Abramo, D’ Angelo, & Caprasecca, 2009; Kahn & Scott, 1997; Sax, Hagedorn, Arredondo & Dicrisi, 2002). In the current literature, research productivity was measured by several ways. For example, Kahn and Scott (1997) used weighted scores for measuring research productivity. That is, they assigned one point for each conference proceeding and unpublished manuscript, and two points for each published article.
Self-efficacy, in general terms, refers to individual’s confidence in their ability to perform a given behavior (Bandura, 1997). Accordingly, research self-efficacy was defined as “judgments about one’s ability to perform specific research tasks” (Bieschke, 2006, p.80). Research self-efficacy has been found to predict graduate students’ involvement in research acitivities and their research production (see Forester et al. 2004 for these studies). Therefore research self-efficacy is seen as an important construct to understand and foster research productivity of graduate students, and therefore, to facilitate graduate research training.
Several measures were developed to assess research self-efficacy. Forester et al. (2004) combined three commonly used instruments (Self-Efficacy in Research Measure, Research Self-Efficacy Scale, and Research Attitudes Measure) to investigate their factor structures. They recommended assembling these measures in an instrument which assess self-efficacy in different research tasks (i.e., data analysis, research integration, data collection, technical writing).
As stated earlier, research productivity is an unavoidable requirement for universities. Therefore, graduate programs’ primary aim is to teach students how to conduct research. During graduate programs, students are taught how to initiate, proceed, and report their research studies. At the end of these programs, they are expected to be proficient in producing quality research. In order to improve the quality in education field, research training of the graduate students in Education Faculties should be given high priority. Therefore, it is important to examine these students’ research productivity and to examine the factors affecting research productivity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of research self-efficacy on research productivity controlling for gender and marital status.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Abramo, G., D’ Angelo, C.A., & Caprasecca, A. (2009). Gender differences in research productivity: A bibliometric analysis of the Italian academic system. Scientometrics, 79(3), 517-539. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. Bieschke, K. J. (2006). Research self-efficacy beliefs and research outcome expectations: Implications for developing scientifically minded psychologists. Journal of Career Assessment, 14(1), 77-91. Bieschke, K. J., Bishop, R. M., & Garcia, V. L. (1996). The utility of the research self-efficacy scale. Journal of Career Assessment, 4, 59-75. Dundar, H., & Lewis, D. R. (1998). Determinants of research productivity in higher education. Research in Higher Education, 39(6), 607-631. Forester, M., Kahn, J. H., & Hesson-McInnis, M. (2004). Factor structures of three measures of research self-efficacy. Journal of Career Assessment, 12, 3-16. Kahn, J. H. (2001). Predicting the scholarly activity of counseling psychology students: A refinement and extension. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 48, 344-354. Kahn, J. H., & Scott, N. A. (1997). Predictors of research productivity and science-related career goals among counseling psychology graduate students. The Counseling Psychologist, 25, 38-67. Phillips, J. C., & Russell, R. K. (1994). Research self-efficacy, the research training environment, and research productivity among graduate students in counseling psychology. The Counseling Psychologist, 22, 628-641. Print, M, & Hattie, J. (1997). Measuring quality in universities: An approach to weighting research productivity. Higher Education, 33(4), 453-469. Ramsden, P. (1994). Describing and explaining research productivity. Higher Education, 28(2), 207-226. Sax, L. J., Hagedorn, L.S., Arredondo, M., & Dicrisi, F. A. (2002). Faculty research productivity: exploring the role of gender and family-related factors. Research in Higher Education, 43 (4), 423-446
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