Competences for Higher Education Faculty Members in Bahrain

Abstract

Knowledge-based economy primarily depend on providing superior high-quality education to create generations of future competent employees. Following that many empirical studies have examined the impact of teaching and learning competences on the outcomes of higher education institutions, especially in terms of students' future skills and employability. Yet, only few of those studies focused on competences of faculty members, especially in GCC and MENA regions. Furthermore, the majority of Bahraini higher education institutions have no competency-based benchmark for recruiting, developing, or even assessing the performance of faculty members. This qualitative study aims at identifying competences for faculty members in Bahraini higher education institutions. A triangulation of two data collection methods, namely; focus group and structured interviews, were employed over two research phases to identify, validate and cluster competences for faculty members using a judgmental sample of 42 senior faculty members. The study revealed 29 competences categorized into 5 main clusters, which are: cognitive, functional, management, personality, and social competencies.