Department Heads’ Awareness of the Roles Assigned to them: The Point of View of Faculty Members in Saudi Arabia

(Yumna Ahmed Atoum and Hussein Mohamad Atoom)

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Abstract

In order to achieve their goals, universities depend on the efficiency of various leaderships, whether this is higher leaderships or heads of departments who are assigned multiple roles in the academic and administrative work plan. This study aims to identify heads of academic department's awareness of the roles entrusted to them from the point of view of faculty members at Imam Abdul Rahman bin Faisal University. To achieve this objective, a questionnaire was prepared for data collection. It was distributed to a random sample of 492 faculty members for the academic year 2019/2020. The results showed that academic department heads’ awareness of their roles in the fields of study came with extremely close averages ranging between 2.50-2.65. The field of human relations placed first with the highest average (2.65), whereas the field of community partnerships and research placed last with the lowest average (2.50). The results showed that there are no statistically significant differences (p=0.05) that need to be referred to regarding some variables (gender, experience). However, there are statistically significant differences amongst different colleges. The differences emerged in humanities colleges, and they effected the difference in academic rank in favour of the assistant professor. The study recommended increasing the awareness of Heads of Department regarding the importance of their administrative and academic roles due to its impact on developing administrative and academic work. It suggests this be achieved  by holding specialized training courses.

KEYWORDS
Academic roles, administrative roles, head of department, university

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References

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