Thinking styles of educational administrators at IIUM based on Sternberg`s model of thinking style

Abstract

One interesting phenomenon exists is that some people have the same background, but the ways of how to deal with the same matter are different. This is because the different thinking styles of different people. This study attempts to examine the thinking styles of educational administrators at IIUM based on Sternberg’s Thinking Style Theory. This research includes two main objectives. One is the investigation of the dominant thinking style of educational administrators, and another is to examine the difference in the educational administrator’s thinking styles based on their different backgrounds (age, gender, educational level, and working experience). This research conducted at International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), involved 90 respondents (from 6 faculties and 11 management departments). Findings revealed that Executive style, Hierarchic style, Global style, External style and Liberal style were the dominant thinking styles of educational administrators. Moreover, the researcher also found that there was no statistical significant difference in the educational administrators’ thinking styles based on their age; Judicial style was significant different based on educational administrators’ gender; Hierarchic style and Oligarchic style were significant different based on educational administrators’ educational level; Local style and Internal style were significant different based on educational administrators’ working experience.