The Mission Of The Researcher In Higher Education: Perceptions Of Researchers On Their Mission(s) At The University
Author(s):
Vilma Zydziunaite (presenting / submitting) Vaida Jurgile (presenting) Ausra Rutkiene Ilona Tandzegolskiene
Conference:
ECER 2016
Network:
22. Research in Higher Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

22 SES 05 C, Academics in Academia

Paper Session

Time:
2016-08-24
13:30-15:00
Room:
NM-J109
Chair:
Paul Wakeling

Contribution

The academic mission of the university includes a number of activity spheres. These activities might be improved in order to ensure the continuity of teaching and research (Brinley, 2012). Teaching at university covers the traditional mission(Howell & Karimbux, 2004). Thus, one of a researcher’s missions at the university is to provide teaching (Feldner, 2006). However, teaching in university is seen as the mission being relevant to political decisions within the education (Joiner et al., 2008). Education and training of intellectuals are singled out as the component of the teaching mission at the university (Keyser, 2004).

Researchers in universities carry out another mission, which refers to scientific research performance. Performance of research in university needs stability and long-term planning, but the results of the investigations shall not be “closed” only within the university (Rabow et al., 2009). It should therefore be ensured through the international dissemination of research results, which is related to the availability of research findings to scientific communities and the society (Pohoryles, 2002). Quality of research results and its dissemination inspire the third mission of a researcher in university - cooperation with the society by providing it with educational and research services.

Mission statements of the university reflect the organizational culture and its ideology, and researchers are broadcasting this culture to their closer or further environments (Feldner, 2006). Through such transmission of university culture a researcher can convey the uniqueness and diversity of the academic institution (Morphew & Hartley, 2006) and researcher’s existence and activities at the university reflects the institutional mission  (Feldner, 2006). Acting as a member of the academic community, following the mission formulated by the university, a researcher carries out the community developer’s mission (Bart et al., 2001).

Personal responsibilities defining the pedagogic, didactic, and research activities are presented in job descriptions of the university though these documents do not focus attention on a researcher’s mission. This phenomenon is also studied exceptionally rarely in educational and other researcher areas or spheres. In recent years the scientific literature refers to several authors who have focused the attention on universities and their personal mission analysis of academic staff.

With today's emphasis on obtaining funding, the main focus of universities refers to achieving "the high research ratings" due to research publications in the premier league journals. This is not a negative objective, but in the working process a researcher receives scant attention despite perceived and performed mission inside and outside the university. The extensive training and gained experience should help to fit a researcher’s mission outside the mainstream research. Researcher’s mission in the society should be emphasized, as well as his/her mission should be therefore related to interpretation of evidence and bringing perspective, particularly where there is a body of evidence pointing in a different direction (Elves, 2013). It would be of benefit if the concepts such as a researcher’s mission could be applied more widely for policy-making strategies in higher education, PhD’s training and meaningful research execution in general.  

The aim of the study was to describe the researcher’s mission in higher education generally and the university specifically. 

The research questions were the following: What is the researcher’s mission in higher education? How the researcher’s mission could be defined in higher education referring to autonomy or interdependence? What activities are attributed to the mission of the researcher in higher education?

Method

Research approach. The study is qualitative descriptive (Kylmä & Juvakka, 2007). Inductive conventional latent qualitative content analysis (‘qualitative content analysis’) was chosen as the method of analysis (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004). In qualitative content analysis, subcategories derived directly from the text data and theoretical framework is not created before analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Theoretical framework here played a supplementary role and was used in interpretation of findings regarding the research aim (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004). Research participants. A snowball sampling was applied in the study to identify participants. The sample size was increased until no new insights from the data were generated (Bloor & Wood, 2006). The total sample was 30 researchers with PhD: 12 males and 18 females from 10 universities in 5 major cities in each of the 5 regions of Lithuania. Researchers represented social sciences, engineering, life / health sciences, physical / mathematical sciences, art / design, language / culture, behavioural sciences. Data collection. The data were collected in the format of semi-structured interviews (Patton, 2002). Research participants were asked the following questions: What is your mission in higher education? What activities are specific to you as a researcher at the university? Describe the activities in which you spend the most time and energy, or maybe you think that this activity takes away too much time and energy. Which activities and why you experience as intellectual activities in higher education? The researchers did not provide research participants with the definition of intellectual leadership when they answered the questions. In this study, the researchers did not compare, but rather described, what intellectual leadership means to the researchers and which roles and why they associate with the intellectual leadership in higher education. Data analysis. The key feature of qualitative content analysis is that the many words of the text are classified into much smaller subcategories (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004). The subcategories are interconnected with categories (Patton, 2002). The analysis started by selecting the unit of analysis (Guthrie et al., 2004), which in this research was decided by the research team to be at least one sentence, because a narrow unit of meaning (Krippendorff & Bock, 2008). The data were coded according to every unit of analysis (‘subcategory’), and then the interrelated subcategories were grouped into categories (Patton, 2002).

Expected Outcomes

Findings revealed that the mission of researcher is individual and is oriented towards the university activities. Every university defines mission and vision, thus the aim of a researcher is to act according to the provided institutional mission. Research participants define their mission as a task, work, obligations, commission, which is given to him/her to meet the specific task, purpose or aims. In this case, it is not a choice, but the assigned function(s). A mission for researchers is also associated with the activities or tasks carried out, networking, performing the social and educational assistance. Some participants describe their mission as a personal inclination or calling for particular activities. Mostly for all research participants their mission in higher education is perceived as the state of experienced strong inner feeling, ambition or vocation. It is related to the inner belief that a researcher’s mission is a particular practice and a personal duty at the university. In summary, a researcher’s mission can be considered as belonging to the external function or/and the task order. A mission is associated with the tasks, performed activities and obligations. A mission is seen as a person's predisposition, vocation, inner experience, ambition referring to the certain activities at the university. The researcher’s mission in higher education, according to research participants, consists of professionalism or expertise, and professional values. Personality of a researcher must be coherent with his/her functioning in higher education. The researcher must be of high moral character, dedicated to his/her activities in higher education, honest, respectful for the self and others. The values must be the essence of a researcher and they have to be transferred for students.

References

1. Bart, C. K., Bontis, N., Taggar, S. (2001). A model of the impact of mission statements on firm performance. Management Decision, 39(1), 19 – 35. 2. Bloor, M., Wood, F. (2006). Keywords in Qualitative Methods: a Vocabulary of Research Concepts. London: SAGE Publications. 3. Brinley, F. (2012). Surviving to Thriving: Advancing the Institutional Mission. Journal of Library Administration, 52(1), 94-107. 4. Elves, M. W. (2013). What is the scientist's role in society and how do we teach it? Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/nov/04/science-in-society-policy-research (Retrieved on 2015-05-04). 5. Feldner, S. B. (2006). Living Our Mission: A Study of University Mission Building. Communication Studies, 57 (1), 67-85. 6. Graneheim, U. H., Lundman, B. (2004). Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness. Nurse Education Today, 24(2), 105-112. 7. Guthrie, J., Yongvanich, K., Ricceri, F. (2004). Using content analysis as a research method to inquire into intellectual capital reporting, Journal of Intellectual Capital, 5(2), 282-293. 8. Howell, T. H., Karimbux, N. Y. (2004). Academy: Strengthening the Educational Mission in Academic Health Centers. Journal of Dental Education, 68(8), 845-850. 9. Hsieh, H. F., Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277-1288. 10. Joiner, K. J., Libecap, A., Cress, A. E., Wormsley, S., Germain, P. S., Berg, R., Malan, P. (2008). Supporting the Academic Mission in an Era of Constrained Resources: Approaches at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Academic Medicine, 83(9), 837-844. 11. Keyser, M. W. (2004). The academic mission and copyright law: are these values in conflict? escolarShare@drake, Available at: http://escholarshare.drake.edu/handle/2092/250 (Retrieved on 2015-07-10). 12. Krippendorff, K., Bock, M.A. (2008). The Content Analysis Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 13. Kylmä, J., Juvakka, T. (2007). Hope in parents of adolescents with cancer – factors endangering and engendering parental hope. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 11(3), 262-271. 14. Morphew, C. C., Hartley, M. (2006). Mission Statements: A Thematic Analysis of Rhetoric Across International Type. Journal of Higher Education, 77(3), 456-471. 15. Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. London: Sage Publications Ltd. 16. Pohoryles, R. J. (2002). The European Research Area: Bureaucratic Vision versus Academic Mission? Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 15(4), 389-395. 17. Rabow, M. W., Wrubel, J., Remen, R. N. (2009). Promise of Professionalism: Personal Mission Statements Among a National Cohort of Medical Students. Annals of Family Medicine, 7(4), 336-342.

Author Information

Vilma Zydziunaite (presenting / submitting)
Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
Vaida Jurgile (presenting)
Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
Ausra Rutkiene
Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
Ilona Tandzegolskiene
Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

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