Faculty research productivity at select higher education institutions in Afghanistan

The study examined faculty's research productivity, their perceptions of influence of factors and policy directives on their research productivity. It also examined the correlation between faculty's gender, level of education, years of teaching experience and their research productivity. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 162 faculty members at four public higher education institutions (HEIs). Descriptive and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The results showed that faculty's research productivity was significantly low. For instance, 76% of the participants reported publishing 468 articles in national journals while 71% of them reported publishing 253 works in international journals since they started working as faculty. Around 82% of the participants did not publish any articles in international journals indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, or PubMed. Furthermore, 54% of the participants did not publish any articles in international journals over the one-year period (2022). The participants believed that various factors influenced their publications in international journals including lack of access to funding, journal articles and data analysis tools. Furthermore, Faculty perceived policy mandates to have varying degrees of influence on their decisions to publish their works on different venues including international and high-impact journals. The study revealed a significant correlation between participants' characteristics, particularly their years of teaching experience and their research productivity, which highlights the significance of tailoring policies and interventions to diverse needs of various faculty groups to enhance their research productivity.