الفهرس 
الفصل الأول: الإطار العام للدراسةيوجد فقط 14 صفحة متاحة للعرض العام
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المستخلص
The emergence of e-management is a result of the technical and technological developments in the field of communications. This has placed the burden of preparing for changing the working methods on the shoulders of modern and contemporary management in the various administrative and technical fields. This, in turn, called for the development of administrative organizations internally in a way that fits the changes taking place in the external environment, creating conditions conducive to success, which will have a direct effect on performance by achieving the desired balance and consistency between variables, behavior of individuals and relations on the one hand, and working groups and methods and systems of performance on the other.
Since education is an organized process that is based on methods with specific objectives, it can only be achieved if there is an administration that can translate these objectives into rational plans and programs, and organize, guide and supervise the educational work.
Within this context, the aim was to improve the quality of education through utilizing new technological data in all aspects of the educational work.
Hence, a school principal’s possession of the skills of administrative work through the use of the data of modern administrative approaches, including e-management, has become essential and necessary for the progress of the educational system. This is because e-management, through the optimal use of information and communication technologies, undoubtedly contributes effectively to the development of the administration’s ability to raise the level of quality and effectiveness in the fulfillment of transactions, provide educational and teaching services, increase interaction between the administrative and educational systems of the school and other systems in the community, as well as contribute to achieving the objectives of the school with minimum effort, time and cost.
The performance of school principals can be improved through the application of e-management, which can minimize the disadvantages of administrative work. By increasing the decentralization rates between administrative levels, routine procedures that waste a lot of time and effort in the decision-making process at the highest levels are reduced, along with providing a great amount of freedom for workers at the lower levels to make decisions and take advantage of their abilities and creativities to rise to new levels. This would contribute to the fulfillment of work, reduce working hours, enable remote working, minimize employee errors, enhance capacity, flexibility and rapid response to events, increase organization competitiveness, reduce administrative costs, boost management efficiency and eliminate bureaucracy. This is conducive to an active organization, whose role is to provide teamwork in an appropriate work environment in which information flows freely, thus contributing to the overall improvement of performance.
At the level of school work, e-management contributes to the development of solutions and suggestions, facilitating and improving access to information by teachers and students when they need it.
This confirms that the developed world’s interest in the use of management information techniques has not appeared out of thin air. Rather, it was the result of an assessment of the extent to which those techniques contribute to solving many of the dilemmas of administrative work, and the benefits these techniques bring about in terms of the speed of obtaining the required information with high accuracy, the ease of storing information, and the authenticity and integrity of this information.
The public secondary school stage is one of the important stages of education; and some observers have called for its development in light of the contemporary technological changes. This requires the school administration to engage with technological development and its data. Hence, the importance of developing the professional performance of the educational leaders in these schools.
The problematic and questions of the study
The issue of using technology in a school administration has become a priority in countries of the developed world, and has occupied a prominent status in educational literature in its capacity as a requirement for development and modernization.
Current management practices in secondary schools confirm that some executives have not realized the importance of using technology and its applications in administrative work, as some of them still run their schools in a traditional way as far as decision-making and performing various administrative tasks are concerned.
A closer look at the educational institutions in the State of Kuwait reveals that these institutions suffer from problems in administrative work, and that the school administration in its present form is plagued by problems that constitute an obstacle to any desired educational development, in light of its adherence to many traditional and futile practices.
In the context of changes and rapid successive developments that are taking place in various areas, careful planning becomes an imperative in order to keep up with those changes and deal with them. This requires the improvement and development of the administrative performance of educational leaders.
Hence emerged the problematic of the study, which is centered around the search for new approaches that can be utilized to develop the professional performance of school leaders. This would lead to a simplification of procedures within educational institutions, which would, in turn, have positive implications for the level of services provided to citizens. Moreover, these procedures acquire more quality and efficiency as they save the time required for processing various administrative transactions. They are also characterized by accuracy and objectivity as far as the various achievement processes are concerned; and they facilitate communication between different departments of the educational institution, and address the problems they suffer from.
This led to considering the possibility of making use of the advantages offered by e-management to deal with the obstacles facing the administration in areas of education and school and restricting its achievement of objectives, and utilize those advantages to bring about some tangible improvement in school management and raise the performance level of school leaders professionally.
The problematic of the study has been identified through the following main question:
What role does e-management play in developing the professional performance of secondary school leaders in the State of Kuwait?
The following questions branched off from that question:
1. What is the concept of e-management? What are its main objectives? How important is it? What are the outstanding practices that reveal the role of e-management in the development of school administrative work? What are the requirements for applying it in school administration?
2. What are the most important areas for utilizing e-management in improving the performance of secondary school leaders?
3. What is meant by the professional performance of school leaders, and how can it be developed in light of the introduction of e-management?
4. How do secondary school leaders in the State of Kuwait assess the role played by e-management in improving their professional performance?
5. Are there any statistically significant differences among the averages of the school leaders assessment for how far e-management contributes to the improvement of professional performance in secondary schools in the State of Kuwait, and that could be ascribed to the variables of (gender, academic degree, job, number of years of service, educational area?)
6. What is the proposed scenario for utilizing e-management in improving the professional performance of secondary school leaders in the State of Kuwait?
Objectives of the Study
The study aimed to:
- Identify the concept of e-management, its most important objectives, its importance, its most outstanding practices, and the most important requirements for applying it in the field of school administration.
- Monitor the most important areas of utilizing e-management to improve the performance of secondary school leaders.
- Identify the concept of professional performance of school leaders, the concept of improving this performance and showing its importance, its objectives, and how it could be developed in light of the introduction of e-management, stating the requirements and constraints.
- Identify how educational leaders in the secondary schools of the State of Kuwait assess the extent of contribution made by e-management to the development of their professional performance.
- Detect statistically significant differences among the assessments of secondary school leaders in the State of Kuwait for the extent to which e-management contributes to the development of the professional performance of school leaders according to the variables of (gender, academic degree, job, number of years of service, educational area).
- Develop a proposed scenario that contributes to the effective utilization of e-management in developing the professional performance of secondary school leaders in the State of Kuwait.
Importance of the Study
The importance of the study is illustrated by the following:
- It contributes to highlighting the mechanism of putting e-management to use in schools.
- It benefits new school leaders in its capacity as a work reference, as it identifies the areas in which e-management is used, and how to utilize it in performing their tasks efficiently and effectively.
- Workers in the field of school administration could benefit from what the proposed scenario offers to utilize e-management in the development of their professional performance.
The Study Approach
The analytical descriptive approach has been used. Within the framework of this approach, the tools of questionnaire and personal interviews have been used with some secondary school principals in the State of Kuwait to examine the reality of using e-management methods.
Limitations of the Study
- The Institutional Limitation: Secondary schools from the public education sector in the Ministry of Education in the State of Kuwait
- The Human Limitation: Leaders of public secondary schools (school principals, vice principals, heads of scientific departments) in the public education sector in Kuwait
- The Time Limitation: the second semester of the academic year 2016/2017
Terminology of the Study
E-management
- As defined by Najm (2004, 125): It is a process based on utilizing the unique potentials of the Internet and business networks in planning, directing and controlling the resources and core competencies of the organization and others, without limits in order to achieve the company’s objectives.
- Procedurally: The researcher defines it as the use of electronic means such as the computer and the Internet or any electronic network to provide services and exchange information related to the administrative functions of school leaders.
Professional performance
As defined by Nasr (2002, 94), it is ”the achievement that results from the translation of theoretical knowledge into skills through the practical and applied exercise of these theories and via the accumulated experience gained through work”.
Professional performance of the school principal
- It is “a group of administrative, artistic, social and creative tasks carried out by the school principal to achieve the desired objectives of the school and the success of the educational process” (Muslim, 2004, 7).
- Procedurally it is “the conduct adopted by the school principal for the optimal implementation and performance of his school duties, so as to achieve the teaching and learning objectives and the administrative practices he undertakes during his implementation of the activities and tasks entrusted to him, following the appropriate ways and means to achieve the desired educational objectives.
Secondary School Leaders:
The researcher defines them as those who are responsible for planning and implementing administrative work in the school administration in accordance with their own vision for developing these schools. They include principals, vice principals, heads of scientific departments and teachers.
Secondary School in the State of Kuwait
It is the stage which witnesses the end of the pre-university educational ladder in the State of Kuwait. It lasts for three years, and includes 10th, 11th and 12th grades in their scientific and literary sections.
The Study Population
The study population consisted of a group of principals, vice principals and heads of departments who work in the secondary schools of the State of Kuwait, and whose total number amounts to (2502) according to the statistics of the planning sector in the Ministry of Education in the academic year 2016/2017
The study sample
The sample consisted of (458) individuals, including secondary school principals, vice principals and heads of scientific departments, representing about 18.3% of the study population. They were selected using the stratified random sampling method.
The Study Tools
They included a questionnaire consisting of (46) phrases, distributed on (7) axes as follows:
- The first axis: the use of e-management in the field of school planning.
- The second axis: the use of e-management in the field of school organization.
- The third axis: the use of e-management in the field of school leadership.
- The fourth axis: the use of e-management in the field of technical supervision and direction.
- The fifth axis: the use of e-management in the field of making and adopting school decisions.
- The sixth axis: the use of e-management in the field of school communications.
- The seventh axis: the use of e-management in the field of school monitoring.
In addition to an interview consisting of (10) questions that was conducted with a number of employees in educational institutions in the State of Kuwait.
The Study Conclusions
The study produced the following conclusions:
(1) The administrative reality in secondary schools is witnessing a high degree of e-management use, with a relative percentage weight of (85%). The order of the areas of use was as follows:
- The rate of e-management use in the field of technical supervision and direction is 86.6%
- The rate of e-management use in the field of school communications is 86.4%
- The rate of e-management use in the field of school planning is 85.2%
- The rate of e-management use in the field of school organization is 84.6%
- The rate of e-management use in the field of making and adopting a school decision is 84.4%
- The rate of e-management use in the field of school leadership is 83.8%
- The rate of e-management use in the field of school monitoring is 83.4%
(2) 93.3% of the principals who were interviewed use e-management methods in their work in the school administration; 70% use them permanently, while 23.3% use them in an occasional manner.
(3) All the principals, who were interviewed as part of the sample respondents, use social networks as electronic methods that contribute to the implementation of administrative tasks; they use SMS, e-mail, and finally websites.
(4) The most important areas in which methods of e-management are used were: internal newsletters, student affairs, registration of students’ degrees, keeping count of absentees, contacting senior administrations, personnel affairs, and contacting civil society institutions. They are also used in the field of personnel professional development, and finally to contact parents.
(5) Statistically significant differences were detected between the sample estimates regarding the use of e-management methods according to the variable of academic degree. These differences were in favor of those who have postgraduate degrees.
(6) Statistically significant differences were detected between the averages of the sample estimates regarding the application of e-management and the extent of its contribution to the improvement of professional performance for the school leaders according to the variable of the number of years of service. These differences were in favor of the group of workers with less than 5 years of service.
(7) As far as the gender variable is concerned, no statistically significant differences were detected between the averages of the sample estimates regarding the application of e-management methods, and how this contributes to the improvement of the professional performance of school leaders in secondary schools in Kuwait.
(8) As far as the job variable is concerned, no statistically significant differences were detected between the averages of the sample respondents regarding the application of e-management methods, and how this contributes to the improvement of the professional performance of employees in secondary schools.
(9) As far as the variable of the educational area is concerned, no statistically significant differences were detected between the averages of the sample respondents regarding the extent of the application of e-management in secondary schools in the State of Kuwait.
Results of the Personal Interview
30 principals and vice principals from the educational institutions in the State of Kuwait have been interviewed to identify the extent to which e-management methods are applied in their schools, and to get acquainted with the most important aspects of their opinions about the application of e-management with reference to the methods and obstacles involved, and to explore their proposals on how to make its application more effective. The results were:
93.3% of the respondents reported using e-management methods in the field of their work in school administration.
The majority of interviewees (70%) use e-management methods in their work permanently, whereas 23.3% of them reported that they use them in an occasional manner. However, 6.7% of the principals indicated that they rarely use e-management methods.
All the principals who were interviewed use social networks as electronic methods that contribute to the implementation of administrative tasks, while those who use SMS came in the second place at 93.3%. As far as the use of e-mail is concerned, 60% indicated that they use it, whereas principals and vice principals who reported using Internet websites constituted 50%.
All school principals use e-management methods to: send internal newsletters, control student affairs, register the degrees of students’ results, keep count of students’ absence, and contact senior administrations. In addition to that, 93.3% of those principals indicated that they use e-management methods in the field of personnel affairs, whereas 83.3% of them reported using these methods in contacting civil society institutions. Moreover, 70% stated that they use e-management methods in the field of professional development for teachers, while 66.7% said that they use them to contact students’ parents.
Regarding the impact of using e-management to perform daily work, the most important answers were as follows:
- Accomplishing tasks quickly and saving time
- Saving effort
- Accuracy of work and communication of messages
- Enhancing ties between school and parents of students
- Facilitating the exchange of information with staff and senior administrations
- Scheduling daily work in accordance with priority
- Improving administrative performance
- Reducing the use of paper and paperwork
- Ensuring that messages arrive on time
- Facilitating the performance of daily work, rendering the follow-up process easy
- Organizing work, implementing it well, and verifying its results easily
- Overcoming the problems of geographical distance.
Regarding the most important implications of the use of e-management at the level of performance quality in school, the answers were as follows:
- Raising the quality of performance and mastery of work
- Ensuring quality in administrative work
- Learning about shortcomings directly
- Performing work quickly
- Encouraging creative ideas
- Contributing to the decision-making process, and taking decisions in a timely manner
- Continuous development in all scientific and administrative departments
- Accomplishing work quickly and getting accurate information about it
The most important human obstacles facing the application of e-management in school were:
- The negative attitude on the part of some employees towards the application of e-management
- The employees’ poor skills in using management technology
- Lack of staff who are qualified enough to use e-management applications
- Some employees lack faith in the feasibility of using e-management
- Resistance to change by some school administrations
- Poor theoretical background of employees on how to utilize e-management methods
- Poor English language skills of employees.
The main material obstacles facing the application of e-management are:
- The high cost of periodic maintenance of the devices used in e-management
- The poor properties of the devices used in e-management applications
- Lack of a good communication network in schools
- Lack of incentives that encourage the use of e-management
- The absence of a legislative clause that allows the disbursement of money for school communications from the Financial Fund
- The infrastructure required for the use of e-management in schools is poor.
- Lack of financial support for the use of management technology.
- Lack of funding for holding specialized courses about the use of management technology.
The most important administrative obstacles facing the application of e-management in schools, were:
- Lack of understanding on the part of some senior leaders for whatever electronic upgrades that are proposed for use in the administrative and educational areas.
- The absence of fixed lines for the organizational structure of work in the field of education.
- The reluctance of some educational administrations to utilize the latest innovations of e-management.
- The absence of administrative encouragement and senior leaders’ support for work in the field of school administration.
- The poor ability of the administrative staff to absorb the new technological changes and use them in the field of school management.
- Lack of awareness by some principals of the importance of utilizing technological innovations in the field of school administration.
- The absence of legislations that require school workers to use management technology.
The most important proposals that principals consider crucial to the development of work in the field of school administration using e-management methods are as follows:
- The establishment of permanent and renewable courses aimed at providing the staff in the school administration with the competencies necessary for using e-management technology.
- Simplifying administrative procedures to enable the use of e-management methods
- Adopting e-management methods as a basis for working in the field of educational administration
- Establishing organized guidelines for the use of e-management methods
- Providing the technicians required for the periodic maintenance of the devices used in e-management in different educational institutions
- Providing an integrated infrastructure that facilitates the use of e-management methods
- Motivating school administration staff to provide innovative ideas on the application of e-management methods
- Providing school administrations with a special e-management program at the level of educational institutions with their different levels
- Providing applications that facilitate the work of e-management
- Establishing legislations and regulations that govern the work of e-management
- Creating administrative channels between the different levels of educational and school administrations
- Initiating a circular from the Ministry and the educational areas that requires employees to use e-management technology
- Educating teachers, students and parents on the importance of electronic communication and how to apply it, and guiding them to follow the school’s website and communicate through it.
- Providing telephone lines and high-speed Internet connections.
- Providing administrative supervisors who possess the computer know-how. And assigning a specialized technical team to create electronic websites for schools.
- Having an e-mail for each employee in the school; this facilitates quick interaction with the letters and the financial or moral services that result from the success of e-management.