التنمية المهنية لتدريسيي جامعة بغداد في ضوء مؤشرات الجودة الشاملة من وجهة نظرهم
The researcher of the present study has aimed to study the professional development of the teaching members at the University of Baghdad based on the overall quality indicators from their perspectives by answering the following question: ‘What is the teaching members’ level of the professional development at the University of Baghdad based on the overall quality indicators from their perspectives? The importance of the present research reveals in several reasons: 1) The importance of the university field itself as it addresses the most important element of the university education ‘the teaching member and his/her professional development’ which is important due to its multiple roles, a teaching and research, and society service; 2) The importance of the teaching member as the most vital pillar of the university education. The teaching member plays a significant role in reaching the achievement of the university to the principles of the total quality and accomplishing the higher education institutions goals. She/he is also entrusted with the responsibility of achieving most of the targets of the higher education, especially in regard to the preparation of the students’ leaderships who are able to improve the society and develop it; 3) The continuation of the development of a teaching member during his/her service is essential and important in an era of rapid change and technological progress. This will motivate us to focus on the continual importance of the preparation and training to keep pace with these changes in society and challenge them; 4) Any reforming or developing of educational standards towards the requirements of the overall quality cannot be achieved unless it constitutes the professional development for the teaching member a fundamental dimension of the reform and development. The present study aimed to: 1) The teaching members’ level of the professional development at the University of Baghdad based on the indicators of the overall quality from their perspective; 2) The importance of the professional development fundaments of teaching members at the University of Baghdad based on the overall quality indicators from their perspectives; 3) The statistical significant differences in the teaching members level of professional development at the University of Baghdad according to the following variables: Specialization (Scientific / Social Science); Gender (Male / female); Academic Rank (teacher, associated professor, professor). The researcher has used the descriptive analytical approach. To achieve the purposes of research, the researcher has designed a questionnaire comprising 40 items divided on four parts (teaching and its requirements, scientific research, the performance of the teaching member and the usage of educational technology). The questionnaire has been validated by arbitrators and experts and the reliability was verified. It has been apply on a group of female and male teaching members at the University of Baghdad. The total sample of this study was 400 teaching members in six faculties, three scientific faculties (Pharmacy, Engineering and Science) and three social science faculties (Education for Girls, Languages and Political Science) at the University of Baghdad. The sample of the study is equivalent to 29.87% from the total population 1339. The statistical analyses of this study have been carry out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Based on the responses, the results of this study have showed that: 1) the level of the professional development has been achieved in an average level; 2) the concentration of the faculties of Baghdad University Baghdad on some areas of the professional development and the lack of attention of others. The results showed that the scientific research field comes at first with the highest percentage, the teaching and requirements as second, the performance of teaching as third; and finally the usage of the educational technologies with the lowest percentage in spite of these four areas were important to evaluate the performance of the university based on the overall quality indicators; 3) There is no significant difference in the teaching members’ level of professional development at the University of Baghdad in regard to the specialization and sex variables from the research sample perspectives; 4) There is a significant difference in the teaching members’ level of professional development at the University of Baghdad in regard to the academic rank variable for the professor compared to the teacher, and for the associated professor compared to the teacher as well; 5) Two items only out of 40 ranked significantly the highest in percentage. Item 4 ‘the courage of the teaching members by the faculty to participate in conferences, symposia and seminars’ in the scientific research area was sequentially the first, and item 11 ‘following up the lessons plans of the teaching members by the faculty’ in the field of teaching and requirements has come as second; 6) Item 38 was not significant in spite of its importance to the achievement of the professional development based on the overall quality indicators. (Author’s abstract)