Improving Performance Indicators in Higher Education: The academics' perspective

Performance Indicators (PIs) are playing an increasingly important role in many western governments' approach to the management of higher education (HE) institutions, and this includes Australia. However, the introduction of PIs by these governments in the HE sector has been far from smooth. The literature on the limitations of PIs, particularly in research and teaching, are plentiful. This paper argues that an effective way to improve the application of PIs is to obtain input from university academics. It starts with a survey of the attitudes of Australian academics from four representative universities towards the application of PIs in their institutions. Although this was found to be generally negative, the academics did point out some strengths in the current PI system. Reasons for their dissatisfaction with the indicators were also covered, such as the inability of the current indicators to capture the dimensions of academic work, and privileging research over teaching. Furthermore, the academics provided numerous suggestions for improving the application of PIs in HE.     

Performance Indicators in Indonesian Universities: The Perception of Academics

This study aimed to explore the perceptions of Indonesian academics towards the implementation of Performance Indicators (PIs) on teaching and research. The study was a case study using semi‐structured interviews, conducted with 30 academics in three state universities in Indonesia. The results of the study revealed academics believed that outcome indicators used in PIs for control mechanisms have neglected the humane side of the teaching and learning process, and scientific research. Academics also perceived that PIs are valuable for improving daunting workplace conditions and poor institutional culture if they are used for the improvement of internal management. The findings of this study, if seriously considered, may provide information for policy makers to revisit and refine the existing indicators used to measure academics’ teaching and research performance. This can be implemented by taking into account the collegial nature, organised anarchy, of a bottom‐up approach that emphasises the emancipation of academics to determine what elements of their teaching and research should be covered and be measured. This research argues that indicators used for PIs can be a blend of quantitative and qualitative measures, which compensate for each other.     

Too little and too much trust: performance measurement in Australian higher education

A striking feature of contemporary Australian higher education governance is the strong emphasis on centralized, template style, metric-based, and consequential forms of performance measurement. Such emphasis is indicative of a low degree of political trust among the central authorities in Australia in the intrinsic capacity of universities and academics to do their work efficiently and effectively. At the same time, it is indicative of a deep-seated political trust in highly centralized and top–down forms of performance measurement, and their capacity to effectively control and coordinate the work of universities and academics. In this article, we argue with regard to performance measurement that these patterns of trust and mistrust embody contradictory assumptions regarding the agency and motivations of universities and academics and prevent adequately coming to terms with the unintended effects that the current performance measurement regime has on universities and the academics working in them.     

An Analysis of Voluntary Disclosure of Performance Indicators by Canadian Universities

Tertiary Education and Management - Managing by performance indicators (PIs) is an important and controversial issue for many stakeholders concerned with higher education in the university systems...     

The Idea of Quality: Voicing the Educational

What counts as quality is contested. The different views of quality generate different methods of assessing quality and, in particular, generate alternative sets of performance indicators (PIs). However, PIs are highly limited in their informational content, and have nothing directly to tell us about the quality of the educational processes. Given the contested character of 'quality', performance evaluation should be framed so as to permit the equal expression of legitimate voices, though founded on the teaching staffs critical self-reflections. The anarchy of viewpoints that this approach might seem to generate can be combated in part by focusing performance review on the educational processes and the educational development of the students. Doubts remain about the allegiance of the academic community to such an educational agenda.     

An Analysis of Voluntary Disclosure of Performance Indicators by Canadian Universities

Managing by performance indicators (PIs) is an important and controversial issue for many stakeholders concerned with higher education in the university systems all over the world. This study analyzes the voluntary disclosures of PIs by Canadian universities. The sample consisted of the 44 universities used by Maclean's Canadian Universities ranking, which divide the universities into Primarily Undergraduate, Comprehensive, and Medical‐Doctoral. We were able to identify 123 PIs which were regrouped in 18 categories. The top two categories were disclosures about research and finance which are not surprising since research and the financing thereof appear to be the mission of most universities. The larger universities in the Medical‐Doctoral category appear to engage in a much higher level of disclosure of PIs than the Comprehensive and Primarily Undergraduate categories. According to our results, voluntary disclosure of PIs is positively affected by university size and mission. These results seem to be consistent with disclosure theories, particularly political cost theory and legitimacy theory and with previous results in the corporate sector. They are relevant to different stakeholders concerned with higher education.     

The link between basing self-worth on academics and student performance depends on domain identification and academic setting

Two studies showed that the link between how much students base their self-worth on academics and their math performance depends on whether their identification with math was statistically controlled and whether the task measured ability or not. Study 1 showed that, when math identification was uncontrolled and the task was ability-diagnostic, basing self-worth on academics was unrelated to the students' math performance. When math identification was controlled, however, the more students based self-worth on academics the worse their math performance. Study 2 showed that, when math identification was uncontrolled and the task was ability non-diagnostic, the more students based self-worth on academics the better their math performance. When math identification was controlled, however, students' level of basing self-worth on academics was unrelated to math performance. These results held for females and males even when gender was made salient. In both studies, higher math identification linked to better math performance.     

Efficiency by Performance Indicators? Evidence from Australian Higher Education

In its drive for higher efficiency and effectiveness in higher education, the Australian Commonwealth Government released its policy on higher education, Higher Education: A Policy Statement during the late 1980s which contributed to the introduction of performance indicators to manage and assess the performance of the higher education system. The research component of annual Commonwealth funding to universities, called the Research Quantum, is now distributed by a set of performance indicators: external research income, publications count and higher degree research completions. This paper analysed the impact of these indicators on the research activities of Australian university academics based on Leibenstein's model of X-efficiency. Although the impact of performance indicators on university academics was found to follow the pressure-effort relationship, for some respondents, the increase in effort as a result of heightened pressure had involved strategic behaviour. Two conditions that are identified for the minimisation of an institution's X-inefficiency despite high staff effort are a high ratio of maximising to non-maximising decisions for both the staff and institution, and for all the institution's essential objectives/activities, and not just those which are measured by the performance indicators. The implications of these findings for the development and application of performance indicators are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Research planning and management in non‐traditional research discipline areas

Abstract

In its drive for higher efficiency and effectiveness in higher education, the Australian Commonwealth Government released its policy on higher education, Higher Education: A Policy Statement during the late 1980s which contributed to the introduction of performance indicators to manage and assess the performance of the higher education system. The research component of annual Commonwealth funding to universities, called the Research Quantum, is now distributed by a set of performance indicators: external research income, publications count and higher degree research completions. This paper analysed the impact of these indicators on the research activities of Australian university academics based on Leibenstein's model of X‐efficiency. Although the impact of performance indicators on university academics was found to follow the pressure‐effort relationship, for some respondents, the increase in effort as a result of heightened pressure had involved strategic behaviour. Two conditions that are identified for the minimisation of an institution's X‐inefficiency despite high staff effort are a high ratio of maximising to non‐maximising decisions for both the staff and institution, and for all the institution's essential objectives/activities, and not just those which are measured by the performance indicators. The implications of these findings for the development and application of performance indicators are discussed.     

Struggling for visibility in higher education: caught between neoliberalism ‘out there’ and ‘in here’ – an autoethnographic account

What happens when neoliberalism as a structural and structuring force is taken up within institutions of higher education, and works upon academics in higher education individually? Employing a critical authoethnographic approach, this paper explores the way technologies of research performance management, specifically, work to produce academics (and academic managers) as particular kinds of neoliberal subject. The struggle to make oneself visible is seen to occur under the gaze of academic normativity – the norms of academic practice that include both locally negotiated practices and the performative demands of auditing and metrics that characterise the neoliberal university. The paper indicates how the dual process of being worked upon and working upon ourselves can produce personally harmful effects. The result is a process of systemic violence. This paper invites higher education workers and policy-makers to think higher education otherwise and to reconsider our personal and collective complicity in the processes shaping higher education.     

Widening access to writing support: beliefs about the writing process are key

Abstract

Universities’ performance indicators for scholarly outputs depend on academics having productive and sustainable writing behaviours. Research shows that writing programmes can increase research output, but less is known about which writing processes are productive. A project was initiated at a university which widened access to writing support to include staff who were not included in these performance targets, but who might be in the future. Following a writing for publication workshop, 36 academics were offered a place at a structured writing retreat. The evaluation aimed to increase our understanding of participants’ perceptions of their writing skills and processes before and after the retreat using a transactional model. We found that participants’ perceptions of their writing abilities were greater than their perceptions of their ability to employ effective writing practices. Both scores improved after the retreat. This finding confirms that a structured writing retreat provides an environment and structure for academics to practise effective writing. It enhances self-belief in the processes and skills required to produce output. Widening access to writing support for academics is essential for success in performance-based systems. Writing support must provide opportunities for academics to develop strong performance beliefs by practising writing skills and productive and sustainable writing processes.     

Academic work and performativity

Neoliberal reforms in higher education have resulted in corporate managerial practices in universities and a drive for efficiency and productivity in teaching and research. As a result, there has been an intensification of academic work, increased stress for academics and an emphasis on accountability and performativity in universities. This paper critically examines these developments in institutions and draws on evidence from universities across the sector and a detailed case study in one university to identify the impacts of these changes on academic work. Given its ubiquity and the link of academic productivity to institutional experience, the paper argues that assumptions underpinning academic performance management need to be rethought to recognise the fundamentally intrinsic motivational nature of academic work. The paper explores the effects of performance management on individual academics as a case study in one institution and proposes a re-design of academic performance management to improve productivity based on the evidence.     

Who defines quality in higher education? Reflections on the role of professional power in determining conceptions of quality in English higher education

In recent years British higher education has come under considerable financial and political pressure which has led increasingly to the use of various indicators for the measurement of quality. Although the use of such measures has often been seen as leading to encroachments on academic autonomy, the paper argues - drawing on concepts from the sociology of power and the professions - that such measures still, essentially, derive from, and reproduce unquestioningly, the tacit assumptions and professional self-interest of academics. This point is illustrated through a brief consideration of the most commonly-recommended performance indicators and by reference to the work of the Council for National Academic Awards in the review and validation of courses. Attention is also given to the stimulation of market forces as a means of quality control. The paper concludes with a plea for greater pluralism within British higher education and argues that several factors make this more likely. These include demographic change, the increasing involvement of industry and the emergence of diverse sources of funding for British HE including the Manpower Services Commission (now the Training Commission).An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Ninth European AIR Forum on the Changing Relationship between Government and Higher Education, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands, 24–6 August 1987.     

Academic career making and the double-edged role of academic housework

Internationalisation, competition and performance orientation are nowadays essential in the managing and financing of universities. This pattern has intensified with the austerity measures and fiscal consolidation that followed the financial crisis in 2008. This article examines the academic labour process and career making of academics from a gender perspective. Based on findings deriving from an Icelandic University, we argue that the austerity measures and increased focus on becoming one of the top universities in the world has changed the official responsibilities of academics. We show how ‘academic housework’ affects academic capital and how the amount of academic housework is unequally distributed between senior academics and newcomers. While the majority of academics conform to this contemporary academic system, marginalised groups put up some resistance but with limited success.     

Measuring quality in universities: An approach to weighting research productivity

The aim of the study is to demonstrate, via the use of the discipline of Education, a procedure to identify and weight the importance of various indicators of research productivity which in turn have become significant components in determining quality within and between universities. The methodology allows for the identification of indicators that are most important, and ascertains if there are differences among academics as to the relative weighting of the various research indicators.Highly valued indicators of research productivity amongst the Education academics were refereed journal articles, peer reviewed books, and major competitive research grants. Refereeing was critical in the determination of quality in research productivity, and the findings generalized across many academics regardless of their own personal productivity. It is recommended that the methodology can serve to determine the tacit weights that academics within and across disciplines attach to various research products. At least, this method makes academics and administrators aware of the weightings they are actually using when making decisions about the quality of academic departments.     

Feathers in the nest: Establishing a supportive environment for women researchers

This paper discusses research examining the attitudes and behaviours of researching women in academia and considers the effect of these factors on successful researching outcomes. The results of this exploratory research highlight in particular, a number of interesting environmental influencers which contribute to enhancing successful work outcomes for academic women researchers. Specifically, personal factors such as, marital status, partner support, age, cultural background and level of organisation (in life) coupled with, research defined factors such as incentive for conducting the research and the existence of research partnerships and/or groups are identified as significant performance influencers. These dimensions appear to facilitate the level of research productivity for women academics based on key performance indicators such as journal/conference paper submissions and successful research funding applications. The potential benefits of this exploratory research are that any correlation between specific self-supporting attitudes or behaviours of successful women academics and effective research outcomes could provide important clues to both emerging and continuing researchers for career development and promotion.     

The role of transnational networking for higher education academics

Amidst rapid socio-economic change, higher education (HE) academics across the world face major challenges to its organisation, finance and management. This paper discusses the role of transnational networking in higher education. Data from 40 interviews with geographically distributed academics engaged in learning and teaching transnational networks (TNNs) were analysed. The findings show that in an increasingly globalised higher education system, transnational networking goes beyond conference attendance to entail multiple combinations of offline and online activities. We do not think that current concepts of communities of practice or networks of practice accurately describe these phenomena. Instead, we suggest that these activities entail different and varying levels of tangibility, more accurately defined by us as TNNs. Moreover, we argue that the term ‘network’ in this context facilitates the individualistic pursuit of a career increasingly essential in a pressurised higher education environment.     

The ‘messy’ business of academic developers leading other academic developers: critical reflection on a curriculum realignment exercise

Little has been written about academic developers (ADs) working in teams leading other ADs. This paper chronicles the experience of a group of ADs in one Australian university working on a curriculum realignment exercise. Unexpectedly the dominant theme in participants’ reflections was group dynamics, not the process. We were confronted by unstated assumptions about ADs working collaboratively and shocked to realise that ADs, like academics, resist change. Our interpretation of that ‘resistance’ was a salutary reminder of the extent to which academic development work reflects broader social, political, and institutional contexts and discourses. Parallels between this context and ADs working with academics are drawn.     

公司企业家精神与企业绩效的实证研究——基于营销能力的交互作用

通过对195家企业的实证研究发现,不同维度的公司企业家精神对企业绩效并非具有一致的影响,其中公司创新精神和积极主动精神是正向影响企业绩效,而冒险精神则是负向影响企业绩效。并且,企业营销能力与公司企业家精神具有正向的交互作用。     

视觉类教育装备效能指标的探讨

提出同时可展示文字数量和图像展示质量这两个视觉类教育装备的效能指标,探讨这两个效能指标的含义,介绍这两个效能指标的测量方法。