Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 Faculty Involvement in Research Activities at Cambodian Public Higher Education Institutions: Trends, Patterns and Key Characteristics Phyrom EAM Hiroshima University eamphyrom@yahoo.com Abstract The conceptual foundation underpinning this present study lies in the conclusions of previous empirical works that define research activities in higher education sector of developing countries to be of small quantity, of low quality, lacking of needed supports and infrastructure, and lacking of research-capable human resources. Through the lenses of this conceptual supposition, this article aims to describe research settings at Cambodian universities in an explicit and comprehensive account. The study has two-fold specific objectives: to examine the current trends and key characteristics of research undertakings at Cambodian universities and to observe the pattern differences on the level of involvement in research activities Descriptive statistics and some non-parametric statistical tests were employed to analyze survey data from 299 faculty members of five reportedly research-engaged public universities in Cambodia. Findings revealed a very inactive tendency of Cambodian faculty to involve in all observed research activities, especially (and worryingly) in the sphere of research production. Also, it was detected that the level of involvement in research activities was significantly lower among faculty working at province-based universities, part-time faculty and those with low research preference. These findings point to some practical consideration for the future sustainable development of academic research atmosphere of Cambodian higher education. Keywords: Cambodian higher education, research capacity, research culture, academic profession Research Background Many economically and socially positive significances generated by scientific and academic research have become apparent in our knowledge-based society. High values have thus been given to capacity to produce, diffuse and exploit new, cutting-edge knowledge through research and development (e.g. Sanyal & Varghese, 2006). When it comes to research and development capacity, Sanyal and Varghese and other previous researchers raised a very critical issue, arguing that the knowledge divide between developed and developing nations is In the last few decades, however, the landscape has changed to a certain degree. Attempts to build research capacity and culture at higher education level has gained momentum in developing and emerging economies (Hazelkorn, 2008; Mok, 2015). Suarez and Lacanilao (2010) and Vinluan (2012) maintained that scientific research productivity has improved gradually in some Asian countries, such as Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Joint research collaborations among countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and initiatives to create say, ASEAN Citation Index (see Chang et al., 2009; Sombatsompop et al., 2012) at the regional level are well exemplary cases that 97  P. EAM reflect the incremental research endeavors in developing nations. A statement from Vessuri and Teichler in their 2008-published edited work (on the back cover) may well and succinctly summarize the current values and trends of academic research at higher education level: Today, unprecedented emphasis is being placed on research as key motor for advancing the knowledge society and its offspring, the knowledge economy. Consequently, governments, for their specialized agencies and bodies devoted to this area, and for higher education institutions. Perhaps it has been those earlier-mentioned global and regional trends that ignite the academic research interest of Cambodian higher education institutions (HEIs). Currently, research implementation and endeavors to promote research culture have been increasingly active. The Cambodian Royal Government, in particular, has initiated the integration of research stream (via its first higher education research policy) into Cambodian higher education sector since July 2010; shortly after that, the so- Master Plan for Research Deve of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) was developed and approved in 2011. The implementation of this Master Plan has been supported financially and technically by the World Bank and MoEYS for a period of five years (2011 2015), both working collaboratively with other relevant stakeholders to achieve seven strategic activities: (1) provision of research capacity training, (2) provision of research quality training, (3) cooperative research, (4) research reports, (5) research ethics, (6) international cooperation, and (7) marketing research and development (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport [MoEYS], 2011). According to Un and Sok (2014), an amount of more than 5 million US dollars was devoted to promoting research capacity at Cambodian HEIs through the four-component, 23-million-dollar Higher Education Quality and Capacity Improvement Project (HEQCIP). This partial budget was used as block grants to fund a number of submitted research proposals from certain HEIs, to provide research training to higher education academics, and to dispatch relevant academics and staff to continue their graduate and post-graduate education in Australia. Along the line, universities have also responded by trying to adjust their institutional research missions and strategies. Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), for example, has been intentionally transformed to become a flag-ship university, with academic research given more priority and supports (see More research projects as a result of inter , and/or privately-commissioned projects have attracted a number of Cambodian faculty members to step into the world of research at their institutions. Likewise, the increase in number of graduates completing their post-graduate education from overseas perhaps contributes in some ways to extending academic research awareness among local faculty and strengthening research culture in this fragile higher education system. For Cambodia, however, the level of research activities and publication has not been at par even with developing countries in the region reportedly only 36 articles published in the Thai Citation Index (TCI) from 2002 to 2011, compared to 717 articles from Malaysia, 103 from Vietnam and 94 from Indonesia (Sombatsompop et al., 2011). It is definitely not seamless to judge research activities of Cambodian academics by relying solely on the TCI, yet the statistics does reveal some reality, possibly the commonsense that scholarly research activities have not been a culture of practice for Cambodian academics thus far. 98 Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 Purposes of the Present Study In fact, still little is known about Cambodian research conditions at higher education level. Previous studies have yet to depict a detailed picture of characteristics and patterns of research activities being implemented at its HEIs. Hence, this present study, taking the case of research implementation at five Cambodian public universities, aims to answer three research questions: 1. What are the current trends of involvement in research activities of Cambodian faculty? 2. Are there any pattern differences on the level of involvement in research activities with respect to disciplines, university locations, employment types, institutional types, number of working places and research preference? 3. What are the generic key characteristics of research works (e.g. focused research areas, type of research) being implemented at Cambodian HEIs? Unlike most of the few studies in the past that used data from the policy level, this present study drew on data from the institutional level, that is, directly from faculty members. It is the hope of the author that this present study will shed more light on the small scope of literature on research culture and capacity of Cambodian HEIs. Likewise, the study should contribute in some ways to informing further research studies in this area as well as informing policies of the Cambodian MoEYS in its recent efforts to boost research engagement and build research culture in the country. Conceptual Background of the Present Study The Conceptual Image of Research Characteristics in Developing Countries A number of past studies attempted to investigate and conceptualize research characteristics and academic capabilities of faculty in developing countries (e.g. Liefner & Schiller, 2007; Sanyal & Varghese, 2006). They offered some frameworks for consideration to policy makers and practitioners at HEIs. Sanyal and Varghese (2006) established that research activities of developing countries as they pointed to the case of Africa tend to be driven by funding from multi-lateral or bilateral donors. This situation is true in many developing countries due to the lack of necessary supports from their respective go supports might be a working approach to enhance local research capacity, such assistance may not be sustainable in the long run. The authors added that the future research growth therefore hinges on four factors: financial supports, research capacities of academic staff, institutional capacity to involve capable people in research activities, and an enlarged scope of higher education. When it comes to academic capabilities of ASEAN countries, Savage (2011) offered similar critical thoughts on three main gaps: the low ability of academics to communicate in English language academically, the teaching-oriented university system, and the poorly-supported academic salaries and infrastructure. Of course, the contribution from universities in developing countries is merely education (Liefner & Schiller, 2007). These aspects seem to function as an overarching conclusion to describe research characteristics of developing 99  P. EAM A study by Sombatsampong and his co-researchers (2011) characterized the causes of low quality of ASEAN academic research production into four categories: lack of global reach due to research publication in local language, limited information and communication technology knowledge to circulate research outputs, the situation of underfunding leading to poor quality editorials and distribution mechanism, and narrow-focus research in niche research areas. Like previous studies, these findings draw attentions on the low quantity and quality of research and the ability to make research outputs visible to the international audience. In short, for developing countries, low quantity of research activities (in niche research areas); low or unstandardized quality of research outputs; inadequate financial and technical supports from key stakeholders; insufficient research-capable faculty; too much dependency on external donor funding, and teaching-oriented academic function are the key barriers hampering any attempts to foster involvement in and production of academic research. Unless these aspects are properly addressed, research capacity and culture will not function well in understand thoroughly the detailed features of these problems in their respective context. Previous Studies on Measuring Involvement in Research Activities While a slew of theoretical and empirical studies have put focuses on measuring research productivity or research performance, fewer research studies have been conducted to conceptualize research involvement or engagement. According to Wylie-Rosett et al. (1990) (as cited in Howard et al., 2013), involvement in research activities is measured through four stages, from critically analyzing literature and applying to practice (level one) to leading or supervising large research projects (level four). Smith et al. (2002) developed an instrument, ontains ten items applying for research funding, writing a research protocol, using qualitative research methods, publishing research, writing and presenting a research report, analyzing and interpreting results, using qualitative research methods, critically reviewing the literature, finding relevant literature, and generating research ideas. These items are measured on a 1-5 Likert scale (with 1 = no experience to 5 = very experienced). Similar to Smith et al. (2002), Howard et al. (2013) looked at eleven research activities: (1) writing a research protocol, (2) submitting an ethics application, (3) collecting data, (4) analyzing qualitative research data, (5) analyzing quantitative research data, (6) writing a literature review, (7) assisted in applying for research funding, (8) secured research funding, (9) co-authored a paper for publication, (10) presented research findings at a conference, and (11) Other. In a large, multi-national research project on the Changing Academic Profession, involvement in research covers nine activities: (1) preparing experiments, inquiries, etc., (2) conducting experiments, inquiries, etc., (3) supervising a research team or graduate research assistants, (4) writing academic papers that contain research results or findings, (5) involving in the process of technology transfer, (6) answering calls for proposals or writing research grants, (7) managing research contracts and budgets, and (8) purchasing or selecting equipment and research supplies (see The Changing Academic Profession survey, in Teichler, Arimoto, & Cummings (Eds.), 2013). The literature shows a similar set of elements in all tools examining involvement in research activities, yet these items still vary to some degree according to the context of the study and the focused discipline. 100 Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 Synthesis of the literature The lack of conjectural and practical understanding on research activities and characteristics conclusively maintain that the situation of research practice at HEIs in developing countries or underdeveloped countries bears totally distinctive characteristics from developed higher education contexts namely, the former is characterized by small research quantity, low-quality research, low supports and infrastructure, and teaching orientation, etc. The contextual differences certainly call for more serious attention to unambiguously comprehend research activities at higher education level in the developing context. In the like manner, neglecting the issues of research activities and characteristics of faculty members at HEIs in the first place can be a risky ignorance, considering any further attempts to develop research systems and culture in those countries. The literature also implies that involvement in research activities and characteristics should be carefully defined and measured such that the tool validly reflects the real situation of research activities in the studied context. Research Methods This study was a part of a larger study on research engagement of Cambodian university lecturers (with a total of 465 participants from 10 Cambodian universities), but this particular article analyzed only the data from 5 public universities, reason being that the five were reported to be research-active public universities in Cambodia (Kwok et al., 2010). The other universities with little (or virtually zero) research engagement were not pertinently appropriate for the focus of this particular study. The studied participants constituted mainly the teaching faculty of Cambodian . The total number of samples finally used in the analysis declined to only 299 lecturers, after excluding the questionnaire sets which were totally irrelevant or susceptible to unreliable answers and flaws of various kinds. The researcher used a self-reported, survey questionnaire (with adapted scales from the literature), examined by senior and local researchers and supervisors and pilot-tested prior to the actual data collection. Variables and measures For the sake of simplicity, variables in this study were divided into three sets: Personal and professional variables comprising seven variables: sex, age, disciplines, terminal degree, employment types, research preferences, and number of working places; Research characteristics variables comprising ten variables: (1) focused research field, (2) duration of research projects, (3) types of research, (4) research approaches, (5) number of engaged research studies, (6) treatment of research results, (7) languages used in research, (8) research collaboration, (9) research collaborators, and (10) funding sources; Involvement in research activities comprising nine items ( , 2002): (1) engaging in applying for research grants; (2) engaging in managing actual research works (e.g. collecting data and field works); (3) engaging in designing research frameworks, methods and procedures; (4) engaging in critically reading and reviewing the literature; (5) engaging in writing academic papers for publication; (6) engaging in presenting research results at academic conferences; (7) engaging in analyzing, writing and presenting research reports for donors or stakeholders; (8) engaging in disseminating knowledge to the public; and (9) engaging in using research results and knowledge to teach in classroom. 101  P. EAM Demographic background of respondents It is noteworthy to depict some quick demographic background information of the respondents. Male lecturers shared a bigger percentage (78.9%), compared to their female counterparts (21.1%). Overall, selected university lecturers were in their mid-thirties ( , SD = 8.44 with the highest percentage (78.6%). Only about 9 % were Ph.D holders. Participants, from different disciplines of specialization, were classified into two different major fields: 1) social science and related fields (52.8%) and 2) science and related fields (47.2%). The study encompassed both full-time lecturers (80.9%) as well as part-timers (19.1%). Surprisingly, 34.1% of the respondents worked in more than one institution. Table 1 Demographic background of respondents Variables Description Frequency Percentage (%) Sex 1 = Male 236 78.9% 2 = Female 63 21.1 Terminal degree 1 = Ph.D 27 9 235 78.6 37 12.3 Terminal degree 1 = Graduate in Cambodia 143 48 country 2 = Graduate from a foreign country 155 52 Research preferences 0 = Prefer teaching 137 45.8 1 = Prefer research 129 46.5 Disciplines 1 = Social science and related fields 158 52.8 2 = Science and related fields 141 47.2 Number of working 1 = Only one 197 65.9 places 2 = Two or more 102 34.1 Employment types 1 = Full-time 242 80.9 2 = Part-time 57 19.1 Institutional locations 1 = Capital city 256 85.6 2 = Province 43 14.4 Institutional types 1 = Comprehensive 146 48.8 2 = Specialized 153 51.2 Data Analysis Research question one aims to study the trends of involvement in research activities at Cambodian universities (using the 9-item scale of involvement in research activities). Descriptive statistics (i.e. frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) was used to show the level of research activities involved by the respondents. The nine items were then classified into three groups according to the adapted conceptual levels of involvement in research activities that is, involvement in actual research conducts, involvement in scholarship activities, and involvement in research production. The internal consistency related to each of the respective construct. Classifying the nine items into the three groups of construct aims to identify the trendy research activities that Cambodian academics were less or more involved in their current working environment. These three constructs of involvement in research activities were then tested using the non-parametric Friedman test to detect statistical significant difference: in other words, which of the three constructs Cambodian faculty were more actively involved. 102 Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 Research question two aims to test the pattern of differences on the level of involvement in research activities with regards to six background variables. Because of the non-normality of the level of involvement in research activities as the majority of respondents were research-unengaged faculty, it required that the intended analys -parametric Mann-Whitney U test was used to analyze the patterns of association between the dependent variable and the six independent variables (disciplines, research preferences, number of working places, employment types, locations, and institutional types). The Mann-Whitney U test is comparable to the t-test, except that it is used for non-parametric data. The principle underlying the test is that it compares the mean rank of the two groups after ranking each case from the lowest to the highest and sum up the total number of cases of each rank (Field, 2009). The six variables were selected based contextually on their possible relationship with research involvement as identified in previous studies. To present the detailed main characteristics of research works and research projects being implemented at Cambodian higher education settings, ten different themes were illustrated with percentage and charts (to answer the last question). Please refer to the Variables and Measures section for details of the ten themes. These variables synthesized the general and particular aspects of research projects being implemented at the selected Cambodian public universities. The researcher offered further detailed explanation additional to the statistics of each focused theme and presented the data in graphical displays (through bar chart, to be more explicit) to ease the understanding on the research characteristics in Cambodian higher education sector. Major Findings Finding 1: The extent and trends of involvement in research activities As explained in the methods section, nine items were utilized to measure the level and trends of research activities in which Cambodian academics involved. Table 2 below showed the statistics of all items ordered from the most involved research activity to the least. The central tendency statistics of all the items (as measured by the 1-5 Likert scale) was a mean score of 1.99 and a standard deviation of 1.29, suggesting that the level of involvement in all key research activities remained very low or that Cambodian academics scarcely engaged in any research activities in overall. For all of the nine items in Table 2, percentage of responses for r than that of other options. In particular, in terms of applying for research grants, 61.2 percent of respondents claimed to have never engaged at all whereas only 7.4 percent of them used to experience the activity very actively. Table 2 Level of involvement in research activities of faculty at the selected Cambodian universities Research 1= 2= 3= 4= 5= Mean SD activities Not engaged Scarcely Fairly Engaged Engaged at all engaged engaged actively very actively f % f % f % f % f % Reviewing 171 57.2 12 4 34 11.4 52 17.5 28 9.4 2.17 1.49 literature (n = 297) Sharing 176 59.3 12 4 35 11.8 44 14.8 30 10.1 2.12 1.49 knowledg e in classroom 103  P. EAM (n = 297) Designing 175 58.7 24 8 38 12.8 33 11.1 28 9.4 2.04 1.42 research (n = 298) Applying 183 61.2 21 7 35 11.7 38 12.7 22 7.4 1.98 1.38 for research grants (n = 299) Sharing 186 62.6 20 6.7 39 13.1 32 10.8 20 6.7 1.92 1.34 knowledg e to the public (n = 297) Managing 188 63.1 24 8.1 33 11.1 28 9.4 25 8.4 1.92 1.37 actual research works (n=298) Publishin 190 64 19 6.4 38 12.8 27 9.1 23 7.7 1.90 1.35 g research articles (n = 297) Presentin 196 65.8 16 5.4 33 11.1 27 9.1 26 8.7 1.90 1.38 g research at conferenc e (n = 298) Analyzing 194 64.9 23 7.7 34 11.4 27 9 21 7 1.86 1.40 and writing research reports (n=299) Note: f = Frequency; SD = Standard Deviation; Please see the detailed description of each While the overall level of research activities ranked very low, the trends of involvement in the nine research activities seemed to vary to some extent, as apparently suggested by the mean score values for example, reviewing the literature ( was a more engaged activity than writing academic paper for publication ( . To understand the trends more deeply, a further analysis was therefore conducted by classifying the nine items into three different constructs: (1) involvement in actual research conducts, (2) involvement in scholarship activities and (3) involvement in research production. Construct one contained three items: applying for research grants, designing research frameworks, methods and procedure, and managing actual research conducts (e.g. da mean score of 1.986 and an SD of 1.337. Construct two had three items: critically reading and reviewing literature, sharing research results and knowledge in the classroom, and truct was .955 104 Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 and a mean score of 2.086 and an SD of 1.384. The final construct comprised three items as well: analyzing data and writing research reports, writing academic paper for publication, and presenting research results at academic conference, hav and a mean score of 1.891 and an SD of 1.296. Because the distribution of the three constructs was highly skewed to the right, the non-parametric test, called Friedman test, was used to study if there were significant differences among the three constructs among the studied respondents. The Friedman test is designed to test statistical difference of non-parametric data, using mean rank as the parameter of analysis, and is robust to non-normal distribution. The mean rank of the three constructs was: 2.02 for construct one, 2.11 for construct two and 1.88 for construct three. The results revealed that the three groups were statistically significantly different ( = 24.995, degree of freedom = 2, p-value <.001). When it comes to research involvement, this result suggested that Cambodian faculty were most extremely inactive in research production activities. Figure 1 Trends of involvement in research activities at the five Cambodian public universities Finding 2: Pattern of differences on involvement in research activities To delve more deeply into understanding the pattern of involvement in research activities, the study observed if there are statistically significant differences on the ordinal-scale involvement in research activities in terms of six background variables (disciplines, locations of the university, types of employment, institutional types, number of working places, and research preferences). Because of the non- ( as verified by the test of normality (Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic = .35, degree of freedom = 299, and p < .001) the statistical test used to observe the differences between groups of independent variables with regards to 105  P. EAM the level of the dependent variable was the non-parametric test, called the Mann-Whitney U test. First, the pattern of relationship between the level of research activities and the location of the observed institutions was tested. The results from Table 3 below showed a statistically significant difference between the universities located in the capital city (n = 256, Mean Rank = 155.43) and those located in provinces (n = 43, Mean Rank = 117.65). Whether a faculty was a full-time or part-time employee was also investigated in relation to the level of research activities, and the finding suggested that the full-timers were more research engaged than the part-timers. The statistical difference (between Mean Rank = 157.79 of the full-time lecturers and Mean Rank = 116.92 of the part-time lecturers) confirmed a large gap between the two groups at p-value less than .001. Research preference that is, whether the respondents prefer more to teach or to do research did also determine the level of engaged research activities. The level of research activities of faculty members oriented towards teaching (n = 137; Mean Rank = 122.3) was found much lower than those oriented towards research (n = 139; Mean Rank = 154.46). The difference was significant statistically at p-value lower than .001. As for insignificant findings, Table 3 depicted that there was no statistically significant difference in the level of research activities between respondents from social science and related fields and those from science and related fields, with the former (n = 158, Mean Rank = 145.6) and the latter (n = 141, Mean Rank = 154.93). There was also no statistically significant difference in the level of research activities between those working in only one institution and those working in two or more than two institutions (p-value = .671). Whether an institution was a comprehensive or a specialized institution also did not explain the level of involvement in research activities of their faculty, despite the slight difference in magnitude shown in their level of research activities, as revealed in Table 3 below (p-value = .409). Table 3 Results of the Mann-Whitney U Test Variables Groups Mean Rank n Mann-Whitney P-value U test statistic Disciplines Social science 145.6 158 10444 .302 Science 154.93 141 University locations Capital city 155.43 256 4113 .003** Province 117.65 43 Employment types Full time 157.79 242 5011.5 .000*** Part time 116.92 57 Institutional types Comprehensive 146.19 146 10612.5 .409 Specialized 153.64 153 Number of working Only one 151.38 197 9775.5 .671 places 147.34 102 Research preferences Teaching 122.3 137 7302.5 .000*** oriented Research 154.46 139 oriented Note: 106 Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 Finding 3: Main characteristics of research being carried out at selected Cambodian HEIs Following is a detailed description that summarized the 10 key specific characteristics of research works engaged by Cambodian faculty. Please observe the bar charts to visualize more overtly each characteristic of the involved research projects. It should be noted that only respondents who engaged in research projects were included in this analysis. First, the trendy research field, according to Figure 2, was the social science field (covering 43 % of research projects engaged by the selected Cambodian faculty from the five universities). Agriculture-focused research projects comprised 15 % and, similarly, science-field research projects constituted just about 13 %. Information technology and engineering comprised approximately 9 % and 7 % of the reported research works respectively. Clearly, the results indicated that research projects at Cambodian HEIs tended to focus more on social science and related fields, compared to the areas of science, engineering and technology. Second, the duration of research projects seemed to be short-term. Most research projects lasted only from 1 to 2 years (60.4%) and 16.2 per-cent of the research projects lasted less than a year time period. Some research projects were funded for a longer period of three years or so (23.4%). This partly reflected the characteristics of small-scale, donor-driven research projects in many developing countries. Figure 2 Focused research field (n = 128) Figure 3 Research project duration (n = 111) Third, the majority of the respondents answers revealed that research methods used tended to be not particularly trending towards either qualitative or quantitative methods. Those respondents who practiced both methods were 52.9%, those who used only quantitative methods were 14.9%, and those who engaged more in qualitative analysis were 19.8%. Another 13% of respondents claimed that they engaged in other sorts for research approach. Fourth, in terms of the type of research based on research purposes, most respondents (44.4 %) believed that they experienced both basic and applied types of research. It is critical to note that further investigations need to figure out what sorts of basic research are conducted and what the actual research process looks like. 107  P. EAM Figure 4 Research approach used (n = 121) Figure 5 Type of research (n = 124) Fifth, with regards to the number of engaged research studies, 63.9 % of the respondents tended to engage only in 1 to 2 research projects within the past five years, meaning they did not spend lots of working time on research activities. Only 21.3 percent claimed that they engaged in at least 3 research projects, while the remaining 14.8 percent engaged in five or more research projects. This finding tended to indicate low quantity of available research projects and activities. The sixth important characteristics observed in this study was the treatment of research results, and the finding indicated that the majority of the Cambodian HEIs-based research results were shared with stakeholders or funders in the forms of research reports and/or presentation (48.4%) and only 6.3% were published in academic journals. A small percentage (3.9 %) of the research projects produced results that were not used by any means. Besides, 40 % of the respondents claimed that their results were both shared with the relevant stakeholders as well as published in journal outlets. Figure 6 Number of research projects Figure 7 Treatment of research results (n = 108) (n = 128) The language used in research was basically foreign language, specifically English, (44.5 %). And a similar percentage of respondents (41.4 %) claimed that they used both a foreign language (either English or French) and the native language together to write (and communicate during) their research works. This result may illustrate another characteristics of donor-driven, project-based research works. Another observed characteristics focused on research collaboration status; the finding showed that 86.1 percent of the respondents collaborated with others in their research works and the rest worked individually. The research collaborators they worked with (as shown in Figure 10) were explicitly their colleagues (37.6%) and the donors or experts (27.1%). This finding 108 Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 reflected that researchers need technical supports from others to operate their research projects. Figure 8 Language used (n = 128) Figure 9 Research collaboration (n = 122) Finally and most importantly, the respondents revealed that the majority of their funding came from international donors (29.9 %), and only 3.9 % came from the Cambodian government, while 4.7 % came from local institutions such as nongovernmental organizations or private institutions. About 39.4 percent of the respondents asserted that their financial supports were generated from at least two or more than two sources together. Further confirming questions revealed that these two or more sources always involved funding from bilateral (e.g. France, Japan) or multilateral donors (e.g. World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF) and some non-governmental organizations operating in Cambodia. Interestingly, about 10.2 percent of the respondent claimed that they obtained funding from their own faculty or department, and 11.8 percent stated that they funded their own research works. These last two categories merit further investigation. Overall, this result obviously showed the very low supports from the government and local institutions and, no doubt, the absence of contribution from industry sector. Figure 10 Research collaborators (n = 85) Figure 11 Research funding source (n = 127) Presumably, all these statistical values revealed and further explained some obvious characteristics of research involvement at Cambodian public HEIs: (1) that the quantity and quality of research activities remain very low, (2) that the nature of research is less scientific and academic but more project-based and donors-driven, and (3) that there is a total lacking of supports and research-friendly environment. Discussion and Implications This study worked to illustrate descriptively the generic trends of research activities of Cambodian university lecturers, the pattern of differences on the level of involvement in 109  P. EAM research activities, and the ten key themes of research characteristics. It truly offered some supporting evidence to reflect the characteristics of research in developing countries. Low quality and quantity of research activities and research production First off, it is the identified low level of research activities among academics that should be taken into consideration the result that is probably not surprising to the local academics. The finding reveals that the majority of Cambodian academics (from universities that the literature reported as research-active) do not actually involve much in research activities namely, for The most actively-engaged research activity is sharing research results and knowledge in the classroom they teach, which comprises 10.1 % of all respondents claiming to have experienced it actively. Other activities consist of as little as 6.7 % of respondents choosing The low percentage of engagement in research activities at their institutions can be exponentially confirmed by two further findings from this study. For one thing, the low number of reported engaged research projects (from only 1 to 2 research projects within the past five years) suggests that research has not been the main focus of the academics in their professional life, which is perhaps a common practice among higher education workers in this country. Second and similar to the first, most respondents report the short-term duration of each engaged research project which generally lasts from 1 to 2 years or less. In fact, the small numbers of short-term research projects are an obvious pattern of donor-driven types of research projects implemented in the developing context of HEIs (Sanyal & Varghese, 2006). The results lend a plausible confirmation to previous studies conducted by scholars studying research capabilities of ASEAN countries which report low research engagement and productivities of less developed countries in the region such as Cambodia, Lao and Myanmar (see Kwok et al., 2010; Savage, 2011; Sombatsompop et al., 2011; Sombatsompop at el., 2012). It should be recalled from some of those studies that most Cambodian universities, though having set research as a priority agenda in their missions, do not practically obtain strong strategic action plans or well-built research infrastructure to boost up research activities at their institutions. For Cambodia, most of the university professors are inclined to view research as students research and, even worse, they have limited knowledge and experiences with academic research activities (Kwok et al., 2010). Lack of research supports and infrastructure Research funding is a big question for Cambodian universities. The statistics in this present study shows (on a relative basis with other funding sources) that only about as little as 3.9% of the research funding is granted by the government side. Though the data is derived from only five Cambodian public universities, it can be a revealing message to mirror the very conditions of higher education funding in Cambodia, given that other universities besides the five are mostly private and less-enrolled public universities. Previous studies assert in the same manner that very low research funding (or even non-existent in some public HEIs) is the main underlying factor causing poor research culture in this country (Kwok et al., 2010). Un and Sok (2015) reported that the government budget for higher education in Cambodia accounted for only 0.1 % of the GDP or 4.1 % of the total MoEYS budget, not to mention the percentage devoted to research and development. Just to make things worse, university-industry linkage to enlarge research funding scale seems to be virtually nil. 110 Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 It is worthwhile to look at the funding situation of other countries in the region. Universities in Thailand, though also considered to be not yet highly developed in research activities, started to build its first research institute since 1970s with a budget package of 100 million USD for research projects at universities in 2003 from public agencies alone, the amount that covers only 20% of the total Research and Development expenditure of the country (Liefner & Schiller, 2007). Likewise, the distribution of research funding of Cambodian HEIs is totally lower than that of the Malaysian case where 42.85% of funding is supported by HEIs themselves and 60.03 % are from national government or organizations, while only 1.42 % is granted by foreign government or international organizations (Yunus & Pang, 2013). Actually, research funding in Cambodia is based more on the commissioned type of research projects (Kwok et al., 2010) or commercially-oriented research, which are probably conducted not in response to the needs of the HEIs themselves but more to the needs of the donor institutions. Less scientific and academic; more project-based and donor-driven research The trends of research activities at Cambodian HEIs are very much oriented towards activities pertaining to scholarship than activities of pure academic research. In the real world of academic research, the tendency of research involvement should orient towards the desire to increase published outputs or the increment in other forms of scholarly activities and knowledge creation because these outputs can shed more light into the existing empirical or theoretical knowledge and/or contribute to social and economic development of the country. Engagement with research (the term used by Borg, 2010) simply referring to just reading or using the existing knowledge or know-hows or involving with scholarship activities, rather than creating new knowledge, is obviously not the ideal of academic researchers. To put it another way, this scenario is likely to reflect the orientation towards applying knowledge than towards creating knowledge. This trend can be partly explained by the nature of donor-driven or commercially oriented projects, which, according to Sanyal and Varghese (2006), may attract researchers in low-salary contexts to involve in research but does not contribute much to actually improving institutional research capacity. The investigated characteristics of research projects indicate as well that the rate of research engagement in the field of science, engineering, and technology is very limited, compared to research in social science. This detected research trend is quite opposite to the conventional research endeavors in other countries where increasing attention is being given to science and technology research. In Thailand, for instance, Liefner and Schiller (2007), reporting findings from Thai Commission of Higher Education from 1998 to 2003, claimed that more than 56% of research budget was used in science and technology fields and only 28% in social science and humanities. Variations in the pattern of involvement in research activities Worth discussing as well is the pattern of differences on the level of involvement in research activities with respect to the background variables. The study detected that there are statistically significant differences on the level of involvement in research activities in terms of locations of the university, employment types and research preferences. First, like many other developing contexts, higher education in Cambodia is more developed in the capital city than in other parts of the country. This fact infers that research-capable academics are likely to choose to work in HEIs located in the capital city rather than moving to provinces where social infrastructure and other development mechanisms are generally worse. Regarding the employment type, the higher level of research activities of full-time professors (compared to the part-time ones) can be due to their existing research networks among their full-time 111  P. EAM faculty members and the more available free time out of teaching. Part-time people tend to spend more time working or teaching in various places and so have little time to conduct research. Finally, those faculty who prefer research to teaching are likely more research-motivated, and their understanding of academic research and their values given to research are possibly higher than those who love teaching and see it [teaching] as a better means to earn more income. These relationships associating with involvement in research activities of Cambodian faculty merit further investigation, after all. Implications Low involvement in research activities entails various contextual meanings. One issue it reflects can be the low experience and capacity to perform research tasks of the local academics. This issue really needs to be addressed. Some possible ways can be through institutional research training program or research-focused professional development policy. Likewise, highly research-curious and research capable faculty members should be encouraged to advance their research skills by becoming active researchers at certain universities. These people should make efficient and effective research mentors for other faculty as well as graduate students, which in the long run will create more human resources to grow research culture in the country. A part from this, research policy does require a bunch of more clearly-established and achievable missions and vision at the institutional level. The study indicating that the lack of clear guidance and vision and the lack of supports necessary to push institutional engagement only makes Cambodian research situation indifferent from other contexts of developing countries say in Africa where most of the engaged research are project-based, funded by multilateral or bilateral donors and deviate from the actual pure (or applied) academic research expected by the nation. While the responsible government body needs to take care of this policy problem, the institutions cannot just wait for actions or supports from the government but have to take their own initiatives to develop research culture at their institutions while using the guidance from the government as the overarching framework. To do so, a number of key consideration needs to be discussed: What kind of research should be conducted at their institutions applied or basic research? What percentage of their faculty should be transformed to be research faculty? What fields of focus should be researched? How can they generate potential research funding? Who will manage research administration and units? No doubt, before any specific actions seriously taken, these big questions related to research characteristics of Cambodian HEIs need to be clearly comprehended by HEI practitioners and relevant stakeholders. Another key implication should pertain to funding. Again, these should be the roles of both the government level and the HEIs: how the government can reform their funding policy and how the HEIs can expand their funding sources and allocate the obtained funding effectively are the key. All these poor research development situations, for many, are caused by the lack of financial supports the low funding condition that is of course detected in this study. To avoid any further excuses for not doing research thanks to financial deficiency, increased funding is a must, and its mechanism should ensure that a specific number of key universities are adequately research-funded and therefore designated with clearly defined research roles and appropriately equipped with other basic research supports, turning them into flagship research universities for the nation. They should be selected or funded based on academic excellence and reliable competition mechanism. Though low funding is not the only root of poor research performance in this nation, remedying this problem can possibly help a lot. 112 Int. J. Comp. Educ. Dev., Aug. 2015, Vol. 17, No. 2, 97-114 Limitation Two main limitations of this study should be pointed out. For one thing, characteristics studied in this present study provided just a quick snapshot of the general picture of what has been going on about research works already implemented (and being implemented) at five Cambodian public HEIs. The generalization of this finding is limited to only these five universities, if without any more rigorous further studies as an extension of this current work. For another, this study did not delve into the depth of explanation of the key findings with further qualitative investigation, which makes the discussion of this study grounded only on the descriptive statistics and previous literature. Further studies should interview the research-experienced university lecturers to obtain more detailed accounts of authentic research implementation at Cambodian HEIs. Conclusion Despite the appreciable fact that a small number of Cambodian academics could manage to get the research ball rolling at their institutions with very low supports, it is undeniable that academic research for these HEIs is still at an extremely infant stage of implementation and Inactive is clearly reflected by this generic trends of research works whereby university lecturers were more involved in less-scientific scholarship activities but less experienced in implementing real scientific or academic research and, especially, in the increasingly important activities of research production. While exploiting supports from the foreign donors is now necessary to build research capacity of this nation, local supports, from the government, HEIs, and key stakeholders, have to be made possible to sustainably develop research environment in the future. Given the ASEAN economy integration policy from 2015 and other global races, no more illusion should be allowed to obscure the research development practice in this country, and the academics should be encouraged or (strictly speaking) pressured to engage actively in national and international scholarly research atmosphere. References Borg, S. (2010). Language teacher research engagement. Lanuage Teaching, 43(4), 391 429. Chang, D., Wu, C., Ching, G., & Tang, C. (2009). An evaluation of the dynamics of the plan to develop first class universities and top-level research centers in Taiwan. Asia Pacific Educational Review, 10. 47 57. Field, A. (2009). Discovering statistics using SPSS (3rd ed.). Dubai: Oriental Press. Hazelkorn, E. (2008). Motivating individuals: Growing research from a fragile base. Tertiary Education and Management, 14(2). 151 171. Howard, A. J., Ferguson, M., Wilkinson, P., & Campbell, K. L. (2013). Involvement in research activities and factors influencing research capacity among dietitians. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 26(1). 180 187. Kwok, K. W., Chan, S., Heng, C., Kim, S., Neth, B., & Thon, V. (2010). Scoping study: Research capacities of Cambodia's universities. Phnom Penh: CDRI. Liefner, I., & Schiller, D. (2008). Academic capibilities in developing countries A conceptual framework with empirical illustration from Thailands. Research Policy, 37(2). 276 293. Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport [MoEYS]. (2011). Master Plan for Research Development in the Education Sector 2011 2015. Phnom Penh: MoEYS. 113  P. EAM Mok, K. H. (2015). Higher education transformations for global competitiveness: Policy responses, social consequences and impact on the academic profession in Asia. Higher Education Policy, 28. 1 15. Royal University of Phnom Penh [RUPP]. (2014). Strategic Plan 2014 2018. Phnom Penh. Sanyal, C. B., & Varghese, V. N. (2006). Research Capacity of the higher education sector in developing countries. Paris: UNESCO. Savage, R. V. (2011). Problems of tertiary education and regional academic journals: A view from Southeast Asia. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 52(2). 219 217. Smith, H., Writing, D., Morgan, S., & Dunleavey, methods of assessing research experience. Primary Health Care Research and Development, 3, 139 140. Sombatsompop, N., Premkamolnetr, N., Markpin, T., Ittiritmeechai, S., Wongkaew, C., Yochai, W., Ratchatahirun, P., & Ben, L. (2011). Viewpoints on synergizing ASEAN academic visibilities through research collaboration and the establishment of ASEAN Citation Index database. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 52(2). 207 218. Sombatsompop, N., Chancheewa, S., Markpin, T., Premkamolnetr, N., Ittirimeechai, S., Wongkaew, C., Yochai, W., & Ratchatahirun, P. (2012). Thai-Journal citation index (TCI) centre: 10 years of experiences, lessons learned, and ongoing development. Malaysian Journal of Library & Infomration Science, 17(3). 17 33. Suarez, K. R., & Lacanilao, F. (2010). Reforming Philippine Science. Iloilo: Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center. Teichler, U., Arimoto, A., & Cummings, W. K. (Eds.). (2013). The changing academic profession: Major findings of a comparative survey. Dordrecht. Springer. Un, L., & Sok, S. (2014). Higher education governance in Cambodia. Leadership and Governance in Higher Education, 4. 72 94. Vessuri, H., & Teichler, U. (Eds). (2008). Universities as centres of research and knowledge creation: An endangered species?. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Vinluan, R. L. (2012). Research productivity in education and psychology in the Phillipines and comparision with ASEAN countries. Scientometrics, 91. 277 294. Yunus, S., & Pang, V. (2013). Teaching and research concentration of academics in Malaysian public universities. Paper presented at the Conference The Changing Academic Profession in Asia: Teaching, Research, Governance and Management. Hiroshima: RIHE. 114