Transformational governance of academic teaching

Abstract

This cumulative dissertation will conclude with a methodological reflection of a three-year research project on the topic of the ‘transformational governance of academic teaching.’ Four publications originated from the research project entitled “TeachGov –Transformational Governance of Academic Teaching,” which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung), and which ran between October 2013 and September 2016.

Based on the previous findings and the assumption of a continued cultural disregard for academic teaching, this project has investigated how universities can systematically upgrade the status of academic teaching beyond using monetary incentives alone. The two leading research questions were: (1) How (and why) do German universities try to raise the status of academic teaching in addition to monetary incentives? (2) How do different modes of teaching governance affect individual teaching behavior?

To answer the first research question, a qualitative approach was adopted to study the institutional arrangements of a supposedly ‘effective’ mode of teaching governance in more depth. Consequently, in 2014 a multiple-case study at four universities who were among the 10 winners of the ‘Competition for Teaching Excellence’ was conducted. The publications Schmid and Lauer (2016), and Lauer and Wilkesmann (2017) originate from this phase.

To answer the second research question, a quantitative approach was used to draw more representative conclusions regarding their effectiveness on individual teaching behavior. Consequently, two online surveys were conducted. First, in May 2015, a follow-up survey was conducted that targeted the professoriate at the four teaching-awarded universities, while another four not-awarded universities were recruited to participate in the survey. Second, a complete survey of all German university professors was able to be realized, which further allowed the analysis of potential influences of different teaching governance modes on individual teaching behavior on a larger scale. The findings reported in Wilkesmann and Lauer (2018), and Lauer and Wilkesmann (2019) were largely derived from this data.

Given that methodological reflections of third-party funded projects have mostly been neglected, this concluding discussion will explain how textbook accounts on research designs and research methods have been applied in practice.

Thema dieser abschließenden Diskussion im Kumulus meiner Dissertationsschrift ist eine Methodenreflektion eines dreijährigen Forschungsprojektes zum Thema ‚transformationaler Governance akademischer Lehre‘. Da methodologische Reflektionen von Drittmittelprojekten bis dato weitestgehend vernachlässigt worden sind, soll im Rahmen dieser abschließenden Diskussion nun dargelegt werden, wie Lehrbuchkonzepte zu Forschungsdesigns und Forschungsmethoden in der Praxis angewendet worden sind. Die vier Publikationen stammen aus dem Forschungsprojekt „TeachGov – Transformational Governance of Academic Teaching“, das zwischen Oktober 2013 und September 2016 vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) gefördert wurde.