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 Reseal1:h (lER), 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.