Academic Freedom and its Relationship to Professional Responsibility of the University Teacher as Seen by the Faculty of Education Students - Al-Azhar University

Academic freedom, as the basic spirit of the existence and development of universities, should focus on academic research, modern teaching methods, and community service. Throughout the twentieth century, academic freedom remained an institutional value in universities. It is about university teachers having a great deal of autonomy to research and teach according to their interests and hobbies without outside interference. The research sample consisted of (541) fourth year students of the Faculty of Education for Boys in Cairo. To achieve the aim of the research, two research instruments were prepared (a measure of academic freedom and a measure of professional responsibility), and their validity for administration was confirmed by calculating validity and reliability. The results indicated: - The F value is statistically significant at 0.01 level, as the F value was (344.316), which is greater than the F table value, which indicates effectiveness of predicting professional responsibility through the dimensions of academic freedom, which indicates that there is a relationship between both academic freedom and professional responsibility. - The dimension of encouraging intellectual freedom is the best dimension of academic freedom dimensions in predicting professional responsibility, as R^2 of the model was (0.310). It was followed by commitment to academic responsibility, as R^2 of the model was (0.187), followed by personal interest in students, as R^2 of the model was (0.153), followed by encouragement of academic participation, as R^2 of the model was (0.072), and finally the dimension of academic autonomy, as R^2 of the model was (0.070). - The (freedom of academic expression) dimension does not constitute a significant effect in predicting professional responsibility, as the (T) value was (1.132), which is a non-statistically significant value, and this means that this value did not reach the level of significance in predicting professional responsibility among the research sample.