A study of the perceptions of deans of education in doctoral-granting institutions in the United States about the role and importance of scholarship in administration

This study was undertaken in order to investigate the perceptions of current deans of education in doctoral-granting institutions in the United States, about the role and importance of scholarship in the administration of the deanship. The investigation involved a survey of 194 deans of schools of education. Major findings of the study revealed that: 1. Most activities that deans found acceptable as evidence of administrative scholarship were in the form of traditionally accepted scholarship, excepting an expectation that deans would engage in a program of systematic research. Respondents perceived that the chief academic officers had only limited expectations of scholarship from deans. The greatest differentiation that deans made between faculty and administrative scholarship was quantitative rather than qualitative, although decanal scholarship tended to be more oriented toward application than to the generation of new knowledge. 2. Time considerations made it difficult for deans to pursue scholarship during their tenure as administrators. Deans who desired to continue scholarship activities usually had to utilize free time for this purpose. Deans who had given more time to scholarship, at all stages of their higher education careers, tended to have higher expectations of time for scholarship from their assistant deans. The deans believed that administrative responsibilities had priority over scholarly pursuit. At the same time/ deans believed that, although there was some detraction, decanal scholarship enhanced the performance of administrative duties. 3, Deans did not believe that their performance evaluations were impacted by the presence or absence of continued scholarship. They were willing to see this criterion become a more important factor in their evaluations. 4. Differences in perceptions of the deans could not be explained by Holmes membership, Carnegie Classification, size of institution, type of institutional control, number of doctoral degree programs or other demographic variables.