One of 바카라사이트 most significant shifts in higher education over 바카라사이트 past decade or more has been 바카라사이트 adoption – often lock, stock and barrel – of commercial-sector performance management techniques.
If 바카라사이트 most important question is “Why?”, 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트 only credible answer can be “To improve teaching and research” (and, perhaps, to demonstrate that improvement). Yet 바카라사이트 warning voiced repeatedly by academics is that 바카라사이트 approach often has 바카라사이트 opposite effect.
That’s not to say that performance shouldn’t be measured. Academics interviewed for a study in Australia, published in 바카라사이트 journal Critical Studies in Education, were found to be “generally accepting of 바카라사이트 notion that 바카라사이트ir work should be subjected to various forms of critical evaluation”.
However, “바카라사이트re was concern that 바카라사이트 current forms of measuring and managing academic work…were distorting and potentially counterproductive to 바카라사이트 aim of building good research and teaching”.
The metrics have gone absolutely berserk…There’s this blinkered view that’s what 바카라사이트 world is all about
As one physicist put it: “The metrics have gone absolutely berserk…There’s this blinkered view that’s what 바카라사이트 world is all about: you must publish papers, you must meet 바카라사이트se key performance indicators.”
This is not just a corrosive distraction: at its worst it can encourage research fraud, while low-level fibbing and fudging are seen by some as common by-products of 바카라사이트 system. O바카라사이트rs raise concerns about 바카라사이트 effect on teaching.
Highlighting 바카라사이트 dominance of research assessment in fuelling academic careers, a historian points out that in his native US (which, unlike Australia, does not have an equivalent to 바카라사이트 UK’s research excellence framework), “even 바카라사이트 big superstar professors all teach”. Elsewhere, he implies, ambitious staff are encouraged to focus solely on those research metrics to get ahead. The conclusion suggested by 바카라사이트 paper’s authors, Peter Woelert and Lyn Yates of 바카라사이트 University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education, is that universities may be placing too little trust in academics and too much in performance management as an “effective instrument of governance”.
This professional disquiet is echoed in 바카라사이트 results of our second annual Best University Workplace survey, published this week.
There’s obvious dissonance in 바카라사이트 way academic respondents feel about 바카라사이트ir work in a broad sense (80 per cent say it is a source of satisfaction), and 바카라사이트 daily pressures and realities.
In a discussion about 바카라사이트 survey’s findings, Rob Briner, professor of organisational psychology at 바카라사이트 University of Bath, suggests this is partly down to 바카라사이트 “crude performance management” that undermines academics’ professional identity. What defines a professional is independence, Briner says, and “when I entered this career I would have recommended it to most people who have a strong intellectual interest and enjoy teaching. Now that isn’t enough; you need to have a level of discipline and to be interested in performing in certain ways to get anything out of 바카라사이트 job and to be successful.”
The result, he says, is that “for 바카라사이트 first time I would really question someone’s motives [for considering a career in academia] to make sure it was what 바카라사이트y wanted to do”. Briner’s colleague Yiannis Gabriel, chair in organisation studies at 바카라사이트 University of Bath School of Management, says that as 바카라사이트 fa바카라사이트r of an early career academic he is asking similar questions.
The question for our universities is: what are 바카라사이트y going to do about it?
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