Wydział Nauk Społecznych (WNS)/Faculty of Social Sciences
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Browsing Wydział Nauk Społecznych (WNS)/Faculty of Social Sciences by Subject "academic cohorts"
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Item A Generational Divide in the Polish Academic Profession. A Mixed Quantitative and Qualitative Approach(2017-09-10) Kwiek, MarekIn a recently changing Polish academic environment – following the large-scale higher education reforms of 2009–2012 – different academic generations have to cope with different challenges. Polish academics have been strongly divided generationally, not only in terms of what they think and how they work but also in terms of what is academically expected from them following the reforms. This article explores intra-national cross-generational differences based on a combination of quantitative (surveys, N = 3704) and qualitative (interviews, N = 60) primary empirical evidence used according to the mixed-methods approach methodology and its ‘sequential’ research design. This article explores the major dimensions of the intergenerational divide between younger and older academic generations (and how they are related to both post-1989 developments and recent reforms). It shows the power of research at a micro-level of individuals, complementing the traditional research at aggregated institutional and national levels. Implications for Central European systems are shown.Item Academic Generations and Academic Work: Patterns of Attitudes, Behaviors and Research Productivity of Polish Academics after 1989(2015) Kwiek, MarekThis paper focuses on a generational change taking place in the Polish academic profession: a change in behaviors and attitudes between two groups of academics. One was socialized to academia under the communist regime (1945-1989) and the other entered the profession in the post-1989 transition period. Academics of all age groups are beginning to learn how tough the competition for research funding is, but young academics (“academics under 40”), being the target of recent policy initiatives, need to learn faster. Current reforms present a clear preferred image for a new generation of Polish academics: highly motivated, embedded in international research networks, publishing mostly internationally, and heavily involved in the competition for academic recognition and research funding. In the long run, without such a radical approach, any international competition between young Polish academics (with a low research orientation and high teaching hours) and their young Western European colleagues (with a high research orientation and low teaching hours) seems inconceivable, as our data on the average academic productivity clearly demonstrate. The quantitative background of this paper comes from 3,704 returned questionnaires and the qualitative background from 60 semi-structured in-depth interviews. The paper takes a European comparative approach and contrasts Poland with 10 Western European countries (using 17,211 returned questionnaires).Item New Entrants to the Polish Academe: Empirical Findings in the Light of Major Theories of Research Productivity(University of Aveiro, Academic Profession in the Knowledge Based Society: the Project Conceptual and Methodological Definition,a Seminar Aveiro, September 10, 2015., 2015) Kwiek, MarekPolish academics under 40 exhibit different academic behaviors and academic attitudes than their older colleagues: they work differently and they think differently about the nature of their work. Much less research-oriented and spend fewer hours on research than in Western Europe. Such a sharp Western European intergenerational divide in academic time investments and research orientation is not observable in Poland. While in Western Europe, research productivity increases hugely with age, in Poland there is only very limited increase of productivity between younger and older generations. All Polish academics spend much more time on teaching and much less time on research. Their average productivity is low from a European comparative perspective (even though Polish research top performers are not different. – High teaching hours for young academics in Poland may effectively cut them off from research achievements comparable to those of young academics in major Western European systems. Their high teaching involvement effectively reduces the number of hours left for research.