The State of Educational Research in Ethiopia
Abstract
It is assumed that the contents of the Ethiopian Journal of Education reflect the status of most scholarly educational research in Ethiopia as the contributors usually come from different institutions of higher learning. The Ethiopian Journal of Education which is published by the Institute of Educational Researth (IER), is the oldest and the only refereed educational journal in the country. It has been publishing scholarly articles since 1967. By using Content Analysis technique, this study assesses the major characteristics of the educational research (123 articles) published in the Journal in terms of research issues, deSigns, types of data, researcher characteristics, and the like. Each article is used as Unit of Analysis and various pertinent categories are created into which the contents of each article are coded. An inter-decade pattern analysis was used to examine a change of characteristics over the defined period. The results suggest a characteristic of infancy though a changing pattern was
observed in the selection of issues, type of data, in application of designs, in sampling procedures, in indignization of researchers, in conceptualization of research issues and in provision of recommended actions.