Academic freedom in Al al-Bayt University and the level of practicing it from the view point of the faculty members based on some variables

Bayan Al-Madi

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the level of practicing academic freedom by the faculty members of Al al-Bayt University. The study population included all the faculty members (297) of Al al-Bayt University, during the academic year, 2010/2011. The study sample was randomly selected and included 250 faculty members. To achieve the aims of this study, the study tool was constructed in its final form of 43 paragraphs distributed on four areas: teaching, freedom of speech, decision making, and scientific research. To answer the questions of the study, standard deviation, arithmetic mean, t- test, Multiple Analysis of Variance and Schefe's method were used to identify the statistical significance of the differences. The findings of the study indicated that the level of practicing academic freedom by the faculty members of Al al-Bayt University was average; teaching came first followed by freedom of speech, scientific research, while decision making came last. The findings also indicated the existence of differences of statistical significance (α≤0.05) due to gender; the differences came in favor of males, and there were differences of statistical significance (α≤0.05) due to the effect of academic rank; the differences favored assistant professor and beneath. In addition, there were no differences of statistical significance (α≤0.05) due to age effect.