ERIC Number: EJ1305224
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1183-1189
EISSN: N/A
Accountability Measures in Higher Education and Academic Workload: A Ten-Year Comparison
Nakano Koga, Silvia Mirlene; Beaupré-Lavallée, Alexandre; Bégin-Caouette, Olivier
Brock Education: A Journal of Educational Research and Practice, v30 n2 p116-136 2021
At the core of New Public Management (NPM) reforms sits the concept of accountability of publicly funded organizations. In Canada, it is suggested that provinces have increased the number of accountability procedures imposed on universities and that those measures would have had an impact on professors' academic workload. This study discusses the evolution of academic workload and evaluation of professors' activities over the last decade, as well as the current distribution of academic workload among the university staff. It relies on the Canadian faculty's perspectives collected through the 2007 Changing Academic Profession (CAP) study (n = 1151) and the 2017 Academic Profession in the Knowledge Society (APIKS) study (n = 2968). Findings suggest that academic workload increased significantly in the 10 years that academic activities are significantly more evaluated, although by academics themselves in a smaller proportion, and that the administrative burden lies more heavily on female and senior faculty members. Descriptive statistics and a MANOVA comparing the scores of five variables in 2007 and 2017 suggest that academic workload increased significantly in 10 years, academic activities are significantly more evaluated, although less by academics themselves, female academics report dedicating more time to administrative tasks and being more frequently evaluated, and senior administrative staff and external reviewers are perceived as being more involved in the evaluation of academic activities in 2017 than in 2007. Our interpretation is that accountability measures could increase professors' administrative burden and grant more authority to non-academic staff.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Accountability, Universities, College Faculty, Faculty Workload, Teacher Evaluation, Noninstructional Responsibility, Women Faculty, Gender Differences, Neoliberalism
Brock University Faculty of Education. 500 Glenridge Avenue, Saint Catharines, ON, L2S 3A1 Canada. Tel: 905-688-5550 ext. 3733; e-mail: brocked@brocku.ca; Web site: http://brocked.ed.brocku.ca
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A

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