Introduction

Abstract

What does it mean to be starting an academic career in the twenty-first century? What challenges and prospects are new academics facing and how are they dealing with these? This book attempts to answer these questions through an investigation of the experiences of early career academics in New Zealand universities. The introduction outlines the origins of the research that led to the inclusion of this book in the Changing Academic Profession series. The New Zealand context is explained, the research process described, and the themes for the book laid out. Key areas of focus in the book include: the teaching, research, and service preferences and activities of early career academics; work-life balance; satisfaction; Māori academics; and professional development and support for early career academics. Underpinning the book is the issue of how early career academics are being socialised into the academic profession, particularly in New Zealand universities, and the interaction of structure and agency within those socialisation processes.

Appendix: Research Methods

Early Career Questionnaire

As mentioned in the chapter itself, the questionnaire for early career academics was based on the CAP survey from 2007 and included many of the same questions, as well as some adaptations and additions for the New Zealand context. I piloted the questionnaire with 47 early career academics, whom I also interviewed, at all eight New Zealand universities in 2011. As a result of this pilot, and issues that were raised during the interviews, I added questions to the demographic section on early career academics’ living situations, and to the institutional policies, support, and services section, in particular. The questionnaire was then sent to all early career academics (those within the first 7 years of their first permanent academic appointment) at all eight New Zealand universities in early- to mid-2012.

Identifying the Research Population

My reference group comprised one local contact at each university (usually working in the university’s teaching and learning centre or equivalent), who helped me to liaise with Human Resources (HR) staff at each university to identify the early career academic population at each university. As explained in the chapter, I defined ‘early career’ as academics within the first 7 years of their first permanent academic appointment. For ease of sampling, because such a population had already been identified by each university for Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF) reporting purposes, I asked each university’s HR contact for the email addresses of academic staff in the first 7 years of their academic career. In most cases, this meant they had been appointed at their current university since the beginning of 2005 (or just before the 2006 PBRF round). Some of those appointees had transferred from academic positions at other institutions and were quite senior and thus not considered ‘early career’, so my HR and reference group contacts had to do some culling before sending through their lists.

Early Career Responses

The eventual list numbered 1216 potential participants. I then sent all early career academics at all eight universities a personalised email inviting them to answer the questionnaire online (using the Qualtrics survey software) and to let me know if they did not fit the criteria. Several replied, telling me they had been in academia for longer than 7 years (but at their institution for fewer years, which is why they would have appeared on the original list). Once I removed those outside the criteria, my population was 1151. I received 538 responses, giving a very respectable response rate of 47%. Table 1.1 outlines the responses by university and overall.

Table 1.1 Responses to ECA questionnaire

Academic Manager Questionnaire

I also sent a much shorter questionnaire, with several of the same questions from the Institutional Policies, Services, and Resources section of the early career questionnaire, to a variety of academic managers and senior people who support early career academics at all eight New Zealand universities. An email request to participate was forwarded by contacts at each New Zealand university to Heads of Department, Deans, Associate Deans, Pro/Assistant/Deputy Vice-Chancellors, and anyone involved in managing or directly supporting early career academics. This questionnaire included the following sections:

• Institutional policies, support, and services for new academics

• Professional and career development

• Job information

• Advice for new academics.

I hoped to receive eight to ten responses from each of the larger universities, and perhaps five or six from smaller universities, as I thought this would give a sense of the perspectives of some academic managers and enable me (or someone else) to identify issues to follow up on in later research. I was very pleased to receive 104 replies, with a good spread of responses from all eight universities. Table 1.2 shows the responses to the Academic Manager Questionnaire received from each university. As invitations to complete this survey were not sent individually, I do not know the population size for each university, so no overall response rate is listed for the Academic Manager Questionnaire. However, as Table 1.2 shows, a good spread of responses was received from across all eight universities, corresponding well with the response rates for the early career questionnaire from each university (see the fourth column).

Table 1.2 Responses to academic manager questionnaire

Academic managers in a variety of different positions replied to the questionnaire, from a Deputy Vice-Chancellor to several Deans, Associate Deans, and Directors. The majority of responses came from Heads of Department or equivalent.⁶ As noted earlier, Heads of Department are usually the people with direct line management responsibility for early career academics and the managers upon whom the early career academics rely most for support and information at the outset of their academic career or upon arrival at a new university. Table 1.3 provides more detailed information on the respondents to the academic manager survey.

Table 1.3 Positions of academic manager questionnaire respondents

The results for the Academic Manager Questionnaire are found predominantly in Chap. 8, whereas the Early Career Questionnaire provides the data in Chaps. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, and also contributes to Chap. 8.

Focus Groups

Following the collection of the questionnaire data, I conducted focus groups at four universities, with a sample of early career academics from different disciplines, and one focus group with managers at my own institution. Respondents were asked at the end of the questionnaire if they were interested in receiving a copy of the findings, and I used this list to email people to ask if they would be interested in participating in a focus group at their university. The focus groups considered the results of the national questionnaire and probed further the experiences of early career academics, and the support and resources needed for successful socialisation into the academic career in New Zealand. Seventeen early career academics and nine managers were involved in the focus groups (Table 1.4).

Table 1.4 Focus group participants

Data Analysis

Statistical Analyses

Questionnaire response comparisons in Chaps. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 were conducted using correlations, t-tests, Chi-Squares, ANOVAs, and regression analyses. All statistical analyses excluded cases pairwise, which ensured each analysis only used the data that was available for that analysis. Preliminary analyses were conducted on all the variables to assess their relative distribution in order to inform the subsequent analyses. Subscale items were grouped together based on conducting Primary Component Analyses and then assessing the reliability of the scales (only alpha scores above 0.7 were accepted). Chapter 5 on academic satisfaction includes more detail on the analyses undertaken for that particular modelling exercise.

Questionnaire and Focus Group Comments

I allowed space after three sections in the questionnaire (institutional policies and support, working relationships, and work-life balance) and at the end of the questionnaire for respondents to make open-ended comments. More than 160 respondents made comments. The thematic analysis of these comments involved my first reading through all the comments, identifying codes for analysis, then ordering those codes into a series of key themes, and attributing each comment to a theme (some comments fit more than one theme). Two colleagues then also went through the comments and assigned them to the key themes. More than 90% of the time comments were coded into the same themes by both me and the other researchers. I conducted a similar process for my analysis of the focus group transcripts.

I include comments from the questionnaire and the focus groups throughout the book to support the statistical findings and the suggestions I make for supporting early career academics. These comments are not intended to be representative of all respondents; rather, they shed further light on the findings and go some way to explaining how some early career academics feel about their circumstances. They also give voice to the participants, as do the poems at the end of each chapter. Comments are indented, and respondents’ academic level, discipline, sex, and age group are provided.

Limitations

It is important to acknowledge that this research represents only a snapshot in time. It does not investigate how views of individuals might have changed or be changing, nor does it look into how recent changes in circumstances (employing institution, type of contract, family situation, etc.) might affect the perceptions of early career academics. It will thus be important to investigate the perceptions of New Zealand early career academics longitudinally and also include voices of academics from all levels, for comparison and context, hence the New Zealand involvement in the next phase of the CAP project.