Enhancing research through academic staff development

Abstract

In the past few years, research has been an increasingly important focus of academic staff development, but there is little documentation of this new area of development. The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution over four years of a programme to develop research skills. The experience of planning and implementing this programme illustrates how changes in higher education and university priorities (such as amalgamations of institutions, increased pressures on staff, increased competition between institutions for funding, and universities’ growing corporatization) have interacted with staff development objectives to shape changes in the programme's purpose, format, mode of participation, and planning approach. A collaborative approach to planning is seen to be appropriate in the current climate, maximizing sensitivity to the distinctive needs of the various faculties, departments or schools. Current scholarly discussion is recognized as providing support for a move toward collaboration and context‐sensitivity.     

The visible hand of research performance assessment

Far from allowing a governance of universities by the invisible hand of market forces, research performance assessments do not just measure differences in research quality, but yield themselves visible symptoms in terms of a stratification and standardization of disciplines. The article illustrates this with a case study of UK history departments and their assessment by the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and the Research Excellence Framework (REF), drawing on data from the three most recent assessments (RAE 2001, 2008, REF 2014). Symptoms of stratification are documented by the distribution of memberships in assessment panels, of research active staff, and of external research grants. Symptoms of a standardization are documented by the publications submitted to the assessments. The main finding is that the RAEs/REF and the selective allocation of funds they inform consecrate and reproduce a disciplinary center that, in contrast to the periphery, is well-endowed with grants and research staff, decides in panels over the quality standards of the field, and publishes a high number of articles in high-impact journals. This selectivity is oriented toward previous distributions of resources and a standardized notion of “excellence” rather than research performance.     

Ranking Romanian academic departments in three fields of study using the g-index

The scientific performance of 64 political science, sociology and marketing departments in Romania is investigated with the aid of the g-index. The assessment of departments based on the g-index shows, within each of the three types of departments that make up the population of the study, a strong polarisation between top performers (very few) and weak performers (much more numerous). This alternative assessment is also found to be largely consistent with an official ranking of departments carried out in 2011 by the Ministry of Education. To conduct the evaluation of departments the individual scientific output of 1385 staff members working in the fields of political science, sociology and marketing is first determined with the aid of the ‘Publish or Perish’ software based on the Google Scholar database. Distinct department rankings are then created within each field using a successive (second-order) g-index.     

Social climate in diverse university departments: the role of internal knowledge sharing

Background:?A good social climate is a precondition for developing a well functioning staff in university departments. However, as universities are becoming increasingly diverse in their staff composition, new problems for the social climate may develop. Organisations where members are open to diversity are known to be better integrated and to perform better. While the relation between a positive social climate and group functioning is well documented, we know much less about antecedents for such a climate.

Purpose:?The aim of this study is to examine the effect of internal learning and knowledge sharing engagement (sharing informal knowledge of a personal nature and the staff's application of each other's knowledge to task relevant problems) on diversity climate (openness to linguistic, visual, value and informational diversity) among university teachers.

Sample:?The study used questionnaire responses from 489 teachers in multicultural Danish university departments.

Design and methods:?To study antecedents for a good diversity climate, statistical analysis including hierarchical multiple regressions was applied.

Conclusions:?Results showed that group members' engagement in: (1) sharing informal knowledge of a personal nature; and (2) their application of each other's knowledge to task relevant problems had strong positive associations with openness to linguistic, visible, value and informational diversity. We conclude that interaction and knowledge sharing among teachers in multicultural departments is likely to have a favourable effect on the social working climate.     

The role of head of department in the pursuit of excellence

This article discusses the role and functions of heads of departments as analysed in the literature with particular reference to heads in one Australian university. Data on staff's expectations and perceptions of their head's role are examined.Staff from eight departments of the University of Queensland filled in a questionnaire designed to give feedback to heads. The results show clearly that staff attach great importance to the head's encouragement function: staff wanted their head to encourage good teaching in the department, to stimulate research and publication, and to take account of each staff member's special talents and interests.This was supported by data obtained from over one hundred structured interviews conducted with staff. They were asked, inter alia, what encouragement was given in their department to excellence in teaching and in research; what they would like to see done to encourage teaching and research more and what barriers to excellence existed in the department. Responses indicate that the majority of staff experienced no encouragement for excelling in teaching, whereas most departments and department heads encouraged active participation in research and publication by overt approval, funds, assistance with obtaining outside grants and a variety of other ways. Staff made suggestions on how to overcome the barriers to excellence; these were mostly realistic and practical and, in fact, implemented in those departments where staff felt encouraged in their pursuit of excellence.     

Describing and explaining research productivity

This article describes results from a study of academic productivity in Australian higher education. It estimates the output (in terms of quantity of publications) of individual staff and academic departments across different subject areas and types of institution. Concerning research productivity, Australian academics resemble their colleagues in other countries: the average is low, while the range of variation is high. Most papers are produced by few academic staff. Several potential correlates of productivity, including level of research activity, subject area, institutional type, gender, age, early interest in research, and satisfaction with the promotions system, are examined. A model linking departmental context to personal research performance through department and personal research activity is developed and tested. The results support the view that structural factors (such as how academic departments are managed and led) combine with personal variables (such as intrinsic interest in the subject matter of one's discipline) to determine levels of productivity. There is also evidence that research and teaching do not form a single dimension of academic performance.     

Reassessing the impact of teaching assistants: how research challenges practice and policy

Background

This paper explores the appropriateness of using mystery customer programmes in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK.

Purpose

The main aim of the paper is to examine potential advantages and disadvantages of mystery customer programmes within HEIs, and to identify any issues that would need to be successfully resolved were they to be integrated into current quality assurance methods.

Sources of evidence

The main sources of evidence employed in this paper include a review of the extant literature and a small empirical survey of staff from a university business school.

Main argument

There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to using mystery customers in HE; however, mystery students could indeed be used to monitor large sections of university processes and services. For this to happen, a large number of operational issues would need to be resolved, including the development of standards of service for staff, recruitment of students, confidentiality, information utilization, the unions, costs and staff resistance.

Conclusions

The use of mystery students in HE today would appear to be a long way off; however, it may have a place, alongside peer observation and feedback questionnaires, to appraise service quality at the point of delivery. For this to happen, university management would need to develop a set of metrics to evaluate all aspects of service performance.     

A qualitative evaluation of perceptions of the role of competition in the success and distress of law students

This qualitative study investigated the role of competition in the success and distress of law students. Participants from an Australian law faculty attended one of four focus groups (undergraduate, postgraduate, academic staff and administrative staff). They discussed their perceptions of competition, the competitive behaviours in law students, the purpose of competitive behaviour and its psychological and learning consequences and the contributing and discouraging factors of competition in law students. Competition was perceived by staff and students to be widespread and included antisocial and manipulative behaviours. The goal of competition was seen to be the best and obtain the best job upon graduation. Competition had a significant impact on the well-being of students, and implications for the structure of law programmes are discussed.     

安徽旅行社企业核心竞争力问题探析

随着我省旅游经济的快速发展,旅行社业作为旅游业的龙头产业,在其核心竞争力发展中所表现出的问题尤其突出。本文针对安徽旅行社行业核心竞争力发展现状,着重对旅行社内部战略层面进行分析,提出从旅行社品牌建设、产品创新、员工队伍建设和企业文化建设四个方面全面提升旅行社核心竞争力。     

PhD by Publication: innovative approach to social science research,or operationalisation of the doctoral student … or both?

ABSTRACT

The PhD by Publication offers doctoral students an opportunity to focus on publishing during their candidature. A considerable body of literature has explored questions of legitimacy, consistency and quality of this model of scholarship, while students have reflected on how this approach helped build a publishing track record and develop skills associated with writing scholarly articles [Jackson, D. (2013). Completing a PhD by publication: A review of Australian policy and implications for practice. Higher Education Research & Development, 32(3), 355–368; Robins, L., & Kanowski, P. (2008). PhD by publication: A student’s perspective. Journal of Research Practice, 4(2), 1–20]. However, there is a need to explore how this approach both shapes and reflects the student experience of doctoral studies. This auto-ethnographical article analyses my own experience of the PhD by Publication. On the one hand, this method suited my multidisciplinary research topic and approach to research and assisted the flexibility and creativity of my research. On the other, I began to view my value as a researcher and the value of my research, in terms of the quantitative performance metrics of research in output, citation counts and h-index. Concept of performativity, I analyse how the PhD by Publication potentially reshapes what it is to be a doctoral student, and how the value of doctoral students is construed by themselves and others within their university.     

论融资在提升中小企业竞争力中的作用--常熟市中小企业竞争力系列研究之五

在企业竞争日益激烈、消费者对产品的要求愈来愈高的新形势下,常熟市中小企业如何继续保持竞争优势、如何进一步提高竞争力便成为一个非常紧迫的研究课题。本文从融资的角度来探讨如何提升中小企业的竞争力,分析了融资在中小企业竞争力中的作用以及常熟市中小企业的融资现状,并提出了相应的对策。     

Determinants of PhD student satisfaction: the roles of supervisor,department, and peer qualities

Understanding the determinants of PhD student satisfaction is likely to become increasingly vital for universities as student satisfaction rankings already ubiquitous at undergraduate and master degree levels extend more broadly to the PhD level. Moreover, as PhD student populations and university competition become increasingly transnational, there is a growing need to understand cross-nationally common determinants of satisfaction. Building on prior research into PhD student satisfaction, and drawing upon relevant conceptual and metrical refinements in the measurement of satisfaction from cognate domains of psychology, we use cross-sectional data (N?=?409) from PhD candidates across the sciences, social sciences and humanities in 63 universities from 20 countries to examine how overall PhD student satisfaction is determined by, respectively and in combination, supervisor, department and peer-group, in terms of both their academic qualities and supportiveness. Taken together, we find that supervisor supportiveness is the greatest predictor of PhD student satisfaction, but that supervisor academic qualities have no significant effect. However, both the academic qualities and supportiveness of departments significantly predict PhD student satisfaction, suggesting university departments and PhD supervisors would ideally work jointly, and perhaps more closely than many currently do, to achieve competitive levels of PhD student satisfaction.     

Training humanitarian professionals at a distance: testing the feasibility of distance learning with humanitarian professionals

Training is an essential part of the professional development of staff working for international humanitarian organizations. While humanitarian workers are being deployed around the world to provide life‐saving relief assistance in often‐hazardous missions, it is imperative for organizations to ensure that staff members understand the mission and protocol of their organizations and that they develop an appreciation for the impact their work has on beneficiaries. Demand for such training has been expanding exponentially over the last decade with the growing number of humanitarian organizations and personnel. In the United Nations alone, an estimated 37,000 civilian personnel are being employed as part of UN humanitarian operations, an increase of 54% since 1997; 75% of this personnel is composed of national staff of the countries of operation (United Nations, 2008 United Nations. 2008. “Towards a culture of security and accountability”. In Report of the Independent Panel on Safety and Security of UN Personnel and Premises Worldwide Retrieved July 26, 2008, from http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/terrorism/PanelOnSafetyReport.pdf [Google Scholar]). With the increasing reliance of humanitarian organizations on national staff to manage their field operations, the professional development of staff members poses an ever‐growing challenge due to the remoteness and distribution of staff, limiting organizations’ ability to maintain the coherence and cogency of their mission and methods. Although many international humanitarian organizations have adopted some form of distance learning into their staff training, few organizations have evaluated the effectiveness of their distance learning programs. This research briefly evaluates the literature relevant to the use of distance learning for training professional staff in the humanitarian field, assesses how distance learning programs are being used among select humanitarian organizations based in the USA, and reviews the results of a pilot distance learning course offered to mid‐career professionals working on international humanitarian issues in a professional capacity.     

Competition in UKHigher Education: Competitive Advantage in the Research Assessment Exercise and Porter's Diamond Model

The UK public sector has been exposed to competition as a means of enhancing its performance. HE institutions now compete for resources on the basis of research. In this competitive environment the crucial question is not why one HE institution is more successful than another at research but why some institutions are home to a large number of departments that are successful. The answer lies in exploring what gives competitive advantage at the level of the department, discipline and nation. Porter' three layer ‘diamond’ model of competitive advantage is proposed as a framework for this exploration. This identified four major components: factor conditions (research orientation and accumulated wealth of institution); demand conditions (demand by academy for departmental research as measured by ability to secure external income/research students); related and supporting departments (research strength of institution and presence of a relevant cluster of research‐strong departments) and departmental strategy, structure and rivalry (ability to focus departmental attention on the successful training of research students and publication in refereed journals). In a linked paper this model provided a framework to evaluate research performance in the discipline of geography (Curran, 2001).     

A System for Quality Improvement in Higher Education

Effectiveness and correct procedure have come into focus at institutions of higher education. Quality becomes a strategic factor for competition and cooperation among universities. A quality-aware organization is not created spontaneously—it requires a committed, visible leadership that promotes the relevant issues. It is important to engage the staff in work on quality evaluation. Furthermore, the top management of the university should be evaluated against university objectives. The quality status of universities must be evaluated on an ongoing basis, but the evaluation perspectives needs to be changed.

Interest from the superiors' point of view should focus on whether and how departments follow up their quality. A workable model for this type of assessment can be based on three (or rather four) dimensions. In the first one the rector can expect departments to report on how they are implementing measures to ensure the quality of their work. The second dimension is to investigate to what extent departments have actually applied those approaches in daily routine; this is known as deployment. The third dimension implies that each department is held accountable for the results of this application. The relevant question here is what trends or levels can be presented relative to internal goals or external benchmarks. From the results, it is necessary to go back and assess in the first dimension again. The question in this (fourth) phase is how the people responsible for the evaluation will validate the relevance of their approach and deployment.     

Mentors for beginning teachers as middle leaders: the messy work of recontextualising

ABSTRACT

Mentors for beginning teachers in schools are often unacknowledged middle leaders in their schools. Through their work with beginning teachers, they not only provide local leadership in their contexts, they influence and shape the work of the next generation of teachers. Government-funded mentor training for the purpose of supporting beginning teachers in Education Queensland schools commenced in 2014 (Queensland Government. [2017]. Mentoring Beginning Teachers. http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/development/employee/teachers/mentoring.html). In Queensland, Australia, over 3000 experienced teachers have completed a two-day professional learning Mentoring Beginning Teacher (MBT) programme. Upon completion, mentors were expected to design and enact a mentoring programme that met the beginning teachers’ needs in their context, using the dialogic mentoring principles they had learned to fulfil the policy goals of increasing the number of beginning teachers transitioning to full registration. This article draws on Bernstein’s ([2000]. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Revised ed. Rowman & Littlefield) concepts of recontextualisation, and horizontal and vertical discourses of knowledge to understand how mentor teachers negotiated and enacted their roles as middle leaders in schools in diverse schooling contexts.     

The impact of new public management instruments on PhD education

New public governance emphasises less state, more market and more hierarchy as the cornerstones for effective steering of higher education institutions. Based on an explorative analysis of qualitative and quantitative data of fourteen German and European economics departments, we investigate the steering effects of six new public management instruments in the years 2001 and 2002 on subsequent placement success of PhD graduates. Using crisp set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to analyse the data, our results deliver strong support for the positive effects of competition for resources and the varying effects of hierarchy on PhD education. Governance of successful departments is characterised by two solutions: transparency over academic achievements as one single success factor in each solution or a combination of additional funding based on national competitive performance with either no public policy regulations for departments or no university regulations for departments. Governance of unsuccessful departments is characterised by one solution: university regulations for departments or a combination of no additional funding based on national competitive performance and no transparency over academic achievements. Our results strengthen the strong impact of selected competitive mechanisms as an effective governance instrument and the partially detrimental effects of state regulations. University regulations turn out to be successful if they increase transparency over academic achievements by faculty members. Success is unlikely if those rules intervene into PhD education.     

职业学校提升市场竞争力的关键在于打造学校核心竞争力

目前,社会上职业学校众多,办学主体各异,投资渠道多元化,致使招生市场竞争相当激烈,就业市场竞争也日益突现。可以说,提升市场竞争力是职业学校求生存、求发展的必然选择。本文主要就职业学校如何打造自身的核心竞争力,提出了学校核心竞争力的概念,分析了核心竞争力的要素,以及如何培植核心竞争力,打造核心竞争力是职业学校提升市场竞争力的关键。     

Understanding research strategies to improve ERA performance in Australian universities: circumventing secrecy to achieve success

ABSTRACT

Many Australian universities have prioritised improving discipline performance on the national research assessment – Excellence for Research in Australia. However, a culture of secrecy pervades Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). There are no specified criteria for the assignment of ratings on a 5-point scale ranging from ‘well above world standard’ (5) to ‘well below world standard’ (1). No rationale is provided to institutions for their discipline ratings and university staff on the ERA panels sign confidentiality agreements. However, what is available to universities are the research strategies that each university documents to improve its ERA performance in its Mission-based Compact, a government funding agreement. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the similarities and differences in the research strategies that universities with different performance profiles employ. Following an analysis of the strategies, substantial commonality was identified in strategy use. However, what was different was how universities employed these strategies and the associated contexts.     

A compassion framework: the role of compassion in schools in promoting well-being and supporting the social and emotional development of children and young people

ABSTRACT

Our current social and political context is awash with pronouncements about the growing number of children and young people with mental health issues. This paper explores how school culture that is founded upon a compassion framework is well placed to support the promotion of pupils’ mental health and well-being. Drawing upon experiences of being a senior leader in a specialist social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) educational setting and of supporting a wide range of mainstream schools in the area of SEMH and well-being, this paper outlines some of the conflicting interests and ubiquitous tensions that present challenges in the contemporary UK education system. Conceptualisations of compassion and other relevant theoretical perspectives are referred to in order to illustrate how the, often, at times, competing needs of different constituencies (pupils, teaching and non-teaching staff, management, parents and carers) within school communities are best served when disentangled from each other and addressed with attention and clarity.