Vol10,Issue12,2019 Page No:111
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JOURNAL OF RESOURCE ISSN NO: 0745-6999 MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY A STUDY ON RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS AND DOCTORAL SUPERVISION BY SOCIAL WORK FACULTIES IN TELANGANA STATE T. SRIDHAR Research Scholar, Dept. of Social Work, Osmania University, Hyderabad, TS. Email: [email protected] Mobile: +91 9000007363 Abstract: Social work course is the most integrated practice-based discipline among social sciences. Therefore, the feeding of practice-based knowledge is important for academics to train graduates. Faculty is the bridge people in this process. The faculty members of social work perform a unique role of an academician in classroom and that of a practitioner during the field work. Most of the faculties under-go Faculty Development Programs (FDP’s) to hone their skills. For an academician an inclination towards undertaking research activities and publications augurs well not only for him but also contributes to the enrichment of social work education and also leads to indigenization of social work knowledge. A study has been conducted on 45 social work faculty members in the state of Telangana by administering a questionnaire to assess their responses regarding the research and publication activities and it is found that on the research and publications front the interest, time spent and achievements of faculty members is quite dismal .In the interest of social work education the faculty members have to reorient themselves and have to focus on research and publications and implications are drawn for faculty development in this regard. Keywords: FDP’s, Research, Publications, Social work education INTRODUCTION: Professional social work education since its Inception in India from the year 1936 has been facing a problem regarding the foreign base of social work literature. Many Indian Social Work academicians and practitioners have openly criticised regarding too much reliance on foreign books and literature pertaining to social work education and meagre efforts to indigenize the same. (Midgely. J 1981) As the available literature has foreign lineation and the students are taught from such a perspective social work practice in its current format to a large extent is not suitable to the Indian context in the current form, owing to its unique social problems Though sporadic efforts have been made to indigenize the literature but they were only restricted to fewer occasions. ( Mukunda Rao K, 1968) Hence it becomes imperative for the faculties to undertake research on an extensive scale and publish their findings. The faculty members have a dual role not only undertaking research on their own but also supervising the research scholars The faculty members are beset with problems like the burden of excessive workload, inadequate teaching related infrastructure facilities and lack of financial assistance for undertaking research and publication activities. Few of them are undertaking research activities but they are not publishing it and also there is some sort of gap between the practitioners and academicians which is also responsible for inadequate research and publications. Status of Social work faculty in India: The faculty in Indian University system are categorized into permanent, aided private, contractual. Part time and private based on their recruitment. Majority of the faculty are private employees and very few of them working in Govt. aided colleges and University Colleges are regular permanent faculty but, in these colleges, also contractual and part time faculty also exist. Status of Social work faculty in Telangana: Telangana has 29 colleges which offer social work program and 58 faculty members are working in these colleges. Barring University and Constituent colleges and few private colleges the rest of the colleges have inadequate faculties. Some colleges have a single faculty also. Faculty development is important in the context that faculty competencies can be upgraded, they can be imparted innovative teaching methods, can be kept abreast of latest developments in the discipline which all will not only help the faculty but also phenomenally help the students. An expert, competent faculty is an asset not only to the institution but also to the discipline. REVIEW OF LITERATURE: With regard to the research, publication activities and supervision of scholars at doctoral levels very few studies have been conducted in the discipline of social work. In the first place not enough research, publications are undertaken by the faculties and hence study pertaining to the same are quite few. Even if research, publications, supervision are being done the vast majority of them are done by a small no. of faculties and the rest large no. of faculties are un involved in the same. The research is imperative for generation of new knowledge for solving societal problems (Agasisiti 2012) Page No:111 Vol10 ,Issue12,2019 JOURNAL OF RESOURCE ISSN NO: 0745-6999 MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY A qualitative analysis of research output of faculty members of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India has been done by Tripathi Manorama and Sunil Kumar (2015). It is observed that between the time period from 1971 to 2011 the faculty of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi has done around 5007 publications . The major research areas in social sciences where the publications are done have been in Sociology. The dominant language in which publications are made is in English language (99.6%). Generally, the books published by social researchers and also those published in regional languages are not indexed in the Web of Science. Barbara.T(2017) has conducted a study on 20 professors by administering an online questionnaire which included questions to find out the research activities amount of time spent by them, what contributed them to spend much time on research. It is found that 82% of academic spent more time on services in their employing institutions rather than on research clearly bring out how engaged are the faculty with their work load and the paucity of time or them to undertake research, publications. A study has been conducted by Anna Scheyett (2004) on the theme Research to Teaching Initiative. The social work faculty has greater responsibility in facilitating the students to utilise the knowledge arising out of research. The faculty generate lot of knowledge which owing to their many responsibilities are unable to share them with faculty members of other educational institutions and rather share them with their college colleagues. The teaching initiative of research is to draw publications from the teaching faculty and refine them so that they can be used for undertaking as lectures to the students. Cynthia L. Grant (2015) has analysed that the publications and presentations are very essential for achieving future success by the faculty members of Social Work. The faculties have to guide the research Scholars on progressing from writing with a dissertation to its publication. The objective of a journal is not to satisfy only the dissertation committee but convey what is discovered and how it helps the field of their discipline. Publication helps in dissemination of the outcomes of the study to the public, but presentation of the same at the conferences, workshops and seminars also creates greater value for the authors. To draw more articles for publication the dissertation serves as an ideal source. A single dissertation study may, in fact, generate several articles. Faculty members therefore may need to direct new graduates to shift their view of the dissertation from a single research document to one that can be separated out for the purpose of publications. The doctoral faculties have to assist and mentor in the form of supporting the ongoing guidance for graduates to fulfil their pedagogical responsibility Social work faculties are leaping toward research, publications but only a small number of them are engaged in it. It is observed that the productivity of tenured faculty is more than that of lower levels of faculty. With regard to publications study has been conducted on 192 faculty members from whom only 97 have responded. It is concluded that majority of the publications were from a small portion of faculties who are highly productive, Faculty generally who feel that publications are rewarding stay in the profession and those who are will not undertake the same. Present Study: Research and Publications and also doctoral supervision by faculties is an important academic pursuit for the progression of their careers and it holds true with regard to social work discipline. However, it is observed that across the Universities of Telangana the social work faculty are having some sort of dis - interest to undertake research activities and also for publications. This can be on account of very few permanent faculties being recruited in only two of the Universities and majority of the Universities are operating with contract and part time faculties. The social work course is a self-finance course and there are no recruitments of permanent faculties in majority of universities in the department of social work and hence the faculties could be discouraged to undertake career advancement initiatives. There is an urgent need to reorient the faculties attitude towards research and publications as it would help in the consolidation of social work knowledge base. The study focuses mainly on the research and publications undertaken by the faculty and also on the research guidance given to the research scholars. It will also analyse the causes