Of relevance to this investigation is whether the type of educational institution can influence the level of staff research productivity. Generally, staff in a research university publishes more than faculty members in a similar comprehensive institution (Radhakrishma, Yoder & Scanlon 1994). This case Institution is a comprehensive University which offers a full range of Baccalaureate programs, is committed to graduate education through the Master’s degree programs, and is planning to be a research University. But Case Three raised an important point saying that:
We want to be a research University, but we are currently a teaching University. The lecturers have a high workload. Although currently the University is encouraging a
research atmosphere by offering grants and through facilitating a forum for presenting research results. However, much more is needed.
Moreover, staff behaviour can be controlled with formal bureaucratic rules. This Institution is not like a research university in which faculty members are treated like professionals in their own right, where staff can set their own agendas and can bargain agreements and contribute to the standardization of faculty work (Finkelstein 1984: Colbeck 1998). In The Noble University, staff members are treated like employees and consequently staff may find fewer opportunities to integrate research into their work practices. As Case two respondent :
This University treats all lecturers the same. The University does not categorise lecturers into highly qualified or under qualified staff. For instance, Professors and Associate Professors have the same treatment as new lecturers. It is different from other foreign institutions that treat experienced lecturers different from new ones. Experienced lecturers, who have expertise in doing research, generally perform less teaching and research is their main task. But in this University, the lecturers have to teach, while research is a personal responsibility to which those lecturers must donate their free time.
Nevertheless, being a comprehensive institution does not completely block opportunities to do research, because the plan to open postgraduate courses has a positive impact on research productivity. To teach Doctoral Degree courses, the lecturers usually involved in conducting research assist students to do research. Pettigrew and Nicholls (1994) found that publication productivity is likely to be higher in Doctorate-granting universities. Case seven stated that in the Faculty of Public Health, lecturers are encouraged to do more research because they have a plan to open Doctoral Degree programs.
However, some faculties argued that postgraduate programs result in lecturers having lower research productivity. Case three argued that:
The lecturers in graduate programs have limited research productivity. The number of their works published or invitations to lecturer at an international level is low.
This observation is supported by Case nine, who explained that the Faculty has many graduate programs. In this situation, the lecturers have to perform extra teaching tasks leaving them with no time to do research, and our informant suggested that:
Our staff have the highest teaching workload. The Faculty has 14 departments and more than 150 subjects are taught per year. Our lecturers have no time to think of doing anything else.
Therefore, it can be seen that the type of institution can influence lecturers’ in their ability to carry out research, especially if it is a teaching university where staff consider that their main duty is not doing research but engaging in teaching. The amount of time spent in research activities affects lecturers’ research productivity (Cohen & Gutek 1991). Although the University tries to encourage staff to see the value of research, the outcomes remain at a low level.
In a comprehensive university other factors may combine with a high teaching workload leading to low research productivity.
6.2.2.2 Policy
The policies referred to in this section include both Government and Institutional policies that support research activities. The Thai Government has recently introduced more reinforcement to motivate lecturers to do research. The Prime Minister stated that universities should develop their research performance as sources of new knowledge and it is important to provide academic support to prepare the country for the knowledge-based society. Responding to the Government policy, Case one, whose task is to implement National policy in the University, said that:
Research is important because it is central to the University’s mission and activities. Lecturers should do research in order to develop their teaching ability. Lecturers acquire new knowledge when carrying out research. The knowledge derived from doing research has high value for communities and private enterprises.
Case three assisted his institution by informing them three years ago that the University did not have a research policy, and that there was no formal evidence of research activity, saying:
Three years ago, no department had a research policy. Therefore, when requested, there was nothing official to be provided. Currently, the Graduate School has asked all Faculties to create their research policy and research focus. Those will be distributed to the public. They will guide teachers and students to put their projects on the right track. They will also assist private organizations which are interested in supporting research works to consider if our focus supports their business.
Case eleven argued that the weakness point in the Government and University’s policies was that it was confusing for lecturers. Case eleven explains the source of the confusion and the impact on the University:
We don’t have a clear assessment standard because the research system is still very complex. We have to set a four years strategic plan. But the problem is the strategic plan from the Ministry of Education and the strategic plan from the Ministry of Science and Technology do not head in the same direction. This demonstrates that the upper management level also has an unclear plan.
Working to make research an essential task depends on whether the academic unit has included research within job descriptions and has identified the ways in which academic work should be evaluated. If a faculty sets an unclear policy, lecturers may not recognize research as an essential task. In this case it is clear why staff may prefer to perform the other activities. At a time when the University has announced its intention to be a Research University, it follows that the policy should be defined clearly in these terms. Case eleven said
Now that this University has announced its plan to be a research University, we have already set the quality standard of what this University expects staff to do. This University must show an exact job responsibility because in order to be a research university, we need to reduce teaching hours and set the portion of teaching and research required to meet the standard. It is the responsibility of every department to understand their roles.
However, in the current situation some Faculties complained that University has an unclear policy to support research activities. Case two argued that both the University’s and its Faculties’ research policies aim to encourage lecturers to do research. Unfortunately, the performance is not matched to those policies as it is evident that lecturers have to struggle to find research funding and to manage their time by themselves without University support.
In consideration of a research production and promotion policy, obviously the University’s research policy influences lecturers to do research in light of the fact that research is one of the indices used for performance evaluation in preparation for promotion (Read, Rae & Raughunandan 1998). Case one agreed that it is important to all lecturers who wish to remain in their current role to do research, and, furthermore, that many faculties use research as a criterion for promotion.
Nonetheless, some respondents argued that in fact The Noble University has not set a formal rule to force lecturers to do research, but rather has a general policy that some lecturers may choose to follow. It is policy without reinforcement. For instance, Case eight informed us that his Faculty has no regulations that force lecturers who have tenure status to do research, therefore implying that research is only a ‘desirable’ task. This situation is similar to that discussed by Case four, who expressed that lecturers are not forced to do research. For this Faculty, teaching is seen to be the main duty. Also, Case ten stated that his faculty has not had a formal research policy, and that lecturers can gain promotion without doing research. He said:
This faculty hasn’t had a research policy to support research and what we do only encourage lecturers to produce research productivity. Actually we do not have many lecturers who have tenure status and we have other alternatives to receiving promotions, without doing research, such as teaching, and administrating in which lecturers are more interested.
According to these research results, the Noble University apparently has not set formal regulations to instruct lecturers to do research. Some Faculties have chosen to follow the suggestion of research activity made by the University, while
the rest have chosen to ignore this direction. The current statement of research policy for promotion is not strong enough to persuade lecturers to perform research activities because there is no punishment for non-compliance. As Case eleven stated:
Thai Universities use compromise rather than force.
Typically, high status Institutions place great emphasis on the relationship between research productivity and rewards by offering tenure and promotion. Effective research Universities help to ensure a vital Faculty establishes policies and practices that favour the appointment of highly able and motivated people (Bland & Ruffin 1992). In the case of the Noble University, the policies relating to monetary incentives and publication fees are also unclear. Some Faculties provide money for published researchers, while some do not. Case two stated that:
This university has a policy to encourage lecturers to publish their research articles. Each faculty must provide publication funds. Nevertheless, it is unclear about the amount of funds required from each faculty because some of them said they have no money.
The observation that the University’s research policy places more emphasis on science and technology research than social science also has a significant effect on the quantity of research outcomes. Case two stated that:
University policy is based on National policies. Social science is less important than science and technology. Nevertheless, when offering research funding, I think, the amount is almost equal for both bodies. But science gets slightly more funding. The University has a policy that encourages lecturers to publicize their research articles by permitting each Faculty to provide funds for research publications. Nevertheless, the performance may be against the policy because I have no real idea about how much money each Faculty provides. Some Faculties informed me that they have no money, which means the process has ended.
Both Government and University policies emphasize that graduates in science should be produced at the same rate as those in social sciences. This University was created to serve the Eastern seaboard industries in science and technology. However, there’s a difficulty in that this Institution was derived from an educational college. Our strength is education. When we were focused on science, it meant we did not strengthen what we were good at. Now, none are good. There are adequate human resources in the Faculty of Science. Most of them were transferred from the Faculty of Education though. The Faculty administrator’s vision is not good enough in proactive strategies. There are two big Faculties in this University that are self-funding: the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. They did not get as much support from the University as the Faculty of Medical Science, Faculty of Science, and Faculty of Engineering. However, the supported Faculties could not utilize the resources provided since their personnel were not adequately qualified.
It can be concluded that both Government and University policy have some influence on research productivity because it is a motivation technique to encourage lecturers to recognize the importance of research. Each faculty has it’s own policy to encourage lecturers to do research and publication, however, a proper policy should be seen to serve the needs of lecturers and be clearly defined, otherwise lecturers may be confused and choose to ignore the performance of these tasks. For the case Institution, a number of points are important; the Institution has a research policy which is considered as unclear by some respondents however having a research policy which expresses a need for staff to do research is further complicated by the fact that some faculties such as Faculty of Education, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities still have high workload. This results in lecturers not having enough time to perform research tasks. Coupled with a specific policy for science and technology development, it is possible that the University could destroy the willingness of social science faculties to do research when they feel that they have been ignored.
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