Higher Education, Work Environments and Quality: An Interpretative Study to Identify How Environment Affects Academic Work, Towards Quality at the University of Sonora (México)

Author(s):

Manuela Guillen(presenting / submitting)Blanca Valenzuela(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 03, From Academia to Real Life

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

17:15-18:45

Room:

W2.10

Chair:

Samuel Gento

Contribution

The university as a work context is a highly complex matter, since the specificity of academic work creates environments different from other organizations. Especially if one takes into account the capabilities and potential for teaching, research, create art and play culture of teachers, are the capacities and potentialities of universities. Teachers are then the main actors in the processes of quality assurance. While teaching is the main activity at the university, within higher education institutions different roles and working conditions are given, creating tensions in the workplace largely due to external pressures (El-Khawas, 2009).

Teachers have different affiliations and ways to get involved in the work environment; they suffer from high tension between professional values and expectations of the bureaucratic system, and then, demand autonomy at work because of their experience and expertise in their field, preferring the evaluation and peer regulation peer (Baldridge, et al., 1974; Ecker and Baldridge, 1973). The work context of teaching cannot be reduced to a matter of infrastructure and material resources.

The school organization, division of labor, micro-political aspects (Gewerc and Montero, 1996), organizational culture (Dill, 1982), academic culture and disciplinary culture (Ecker and Baldridge, 1973) and the work environment and satisfaction (Mujica de González and Perez de Maldonado, 2007) have proven to be important aspects of the context in which teachers are performing and which may condition their work. Trying to address this dimensions the overall objective of this research is to:

Determine from the perspective of teachers, what work environment dimensions affect academic work aimed to achieving educational and institutional quality. So, the general guiding research question is:

How the work environment affects their academic work towards quality?

We took a public education higher education institution of Mexico as the context for this research; nevertheless we are sure that general work conditions are a constant for academics all over the world, so we hope the results derivate from this approach can serve as a reflexive framework for academics outside our country.

Method

We made a qualitative approach which intends to look for a comprehensive knowledge about the study object in this research. Deep interviews were carried out on 18 full-time faculty professors of a public university in Mexico; those teachers have a minimum of 20 years as university staff, and must perform the tasks of teaching, research and social extension of scientific knowledge. Participants come from each of the divisions of the university addressed: Social sciences, Humanities, Engineering, Economic sciences, Natural sciences; and Health and biological sciences. The interviews take account of how the working environment conditions facilitate or difficult academic work required for archiving educational quality. The dimension of the work environment assessed were: faculty governability, academic-administrative policies, decision making processes, collaborative work, students and teachers satisfaction, curriculum, teacher’s assessment, educational evaluation processes, work promotion, salary, working conditions and infrastructure, work-union labor. Data collected was processed with the traditional handmade constant comparative analysis of grounded theory, also computer software for qualitative analysis were used for aide for the retrieval of data (Atlas Ti and QDA Miner).

Expected Outcomes

Some general conclusions, that emerge from our data are as follows: There is a general agreement on what dimensions of the working environment affect teachers work and educational processes. The main dimension that affect work negatively and therefore, on the base of teachers’ narratives, affect educational quality were faculty governability and in a second degree decision making processes Teachers tell that they are never taken into account and by the administration who is in charge of promoting educational quality. Teachers tell that administrators don’t understand the nature of academic work and then administrative and academic policies just hurt the efforts of the academic communities. The most relevant of positive mentions was students and teachers satisfaction, as well as work-union labor. Commitment to the institution, raised from the narratives and not from the interview script dimensions as a highly positive dimension. More “scientific” driven academic communities (natural sciences and engineering) were more likely to refer a high impact into the research capabilities of the faculty professors. Social sciences and humanities communities were more likely to refer a high impact on work social relationships and faculty satisfaction.

References

Baldridge, J. V. (1974). The Impact of Individuals, Organizational Structure, and Environment on Organizational Innovation. Research and Development Memorandum No. 124. Ecker, G. P., & Baldridge, J. V. (1973). Academic Politics, Morale, and Involvement: Preliminary Findings of the Stanford Project on Academic Governance. El-Khawas, E. (2009). Emerging Academic Identities: A New Research And Policy Agenda. From Governance to Identity. En A. Amaral, I. Bleiklie y C. Musselin (Eds.), (Vol. 24, pp. 31-44): Springer Netherlands. Gewerc, A., & Montero, L. (1996). Profesores universitarios: contextos organizativos y desarrollo profesional. Enseñanza, 14, 65-79. Dill, D. D. (1982). The management of academic culture: Notes on the management of meaning and social integration. Higher Education, 11(3), 303-320. Dill, D. D. (2003). An Institutional Perspective on Higher Education Policy: The Case of Academic Quality Assurance.. En J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research (Vol. 18, pp. 669-699): Springer Netherlands. Mujica de González, M., & Pérez de Maldonado, I. (2007). Gestión del clima organizacional: Una acción deseable en la universidad. Laurus, 13(24), 290-304.

Author Information

Manuela Guillen (presenting / submitting)

University of Sonora, Mexico

Blanca Valenzuela (presenting)