Methodological preference of researchers in the field of educational administration in Iran and west and their implications for future methodologies

The main aim of this study was the investigation of the methodological preferences of researchers in the field of educational administration in the three areas of strategy, methods and research techniques and their direction for research strategy in the future. Data were gathered from all published articles in recent three years in the two English language journals: Educational Administration Quarterly and Journal of Educational Administration, and two Iranian journals, i.e. Journal of Management and Planning in the Educational Systems and Quarterly Journal of New Approaches in Educational Administration. All .of the published articles in the referred journals were analyzed methodologically, without resort to sampling. The results showed that: in the area of strategy, there is meaningful difference between Iranian and Western researches in the research strategies used. That is, in Iran, 88.81% of published articles use quantitave strategy, 7.89% qualitative and 3.28% mixed strategy. But, in 32.04% of articles published in the 2 western journals exhibit quantitave strategies, 54.69% qualitative and 13.25% mixed ones. Methodology- wise in Iran, dominant methods are survey and correlation methods, which account for of nearly 78.28% of published articles. However, dominant methods in western journal articles are derived from qualitative strategies. In the area of techniques, there is meaningful difference between Iranian and Western researches in the used research techniques. Thus, in Iran, 85.52% of published articles was used questionnaires, whereas, the western researchers seem to have used more mixed techniques for gathering data. Finally, researchers in the field of educational administration in the west show a progressive movement towards qualitative strategy and its methods. Meanwhile, the mixed strategy too, enjoys and acceptance and show’s a promise for more future growth in the west, over and against strategy and its methods has significant dominance the dominance of quantitative methods in Iran.