THE RESEARCH Assessment Exercise has destroyed attempts to raise the profile of teaching in universities, delegates at a conference on working in higher education heard this week.
Maurice Kogan of Brunel University told the Society for Research into Higher Education conference in Cardiff that the pressure on academics to maintain or improve departmental research gradings has diverted attention from raising the quality of teaching.
He delivered a paper, co-written with Mary Henkel, a fellow researcher at the Centre for the Evaluation of Public Policy and Practice, on the impact of policy changes on academics. It was based on research into graduate education in Britain and the interim report of an international study of higher education reforms in England, Sweden and Norway, for which 110 academics at 11 English universities were interviewed.
The research found that the RAE is the most influential of the assessment and audit practices, and that it has increased and centralised the regulation of academic work.
The exercise's importance meant staff who brought research funding into departments could bargain on working conditions; as a result, some were opting out of teaching and administration.
Professor Kogan and Ms Henkel argued that these trends could create tension and uncertainty within departments. "The trends can affect the morale of those who continue to combine teaching, research and administrative roles," they said.
The financial impact of the RAE was substantial and Professor Kogan told the conference that competition for research funding had changed the behaviour of universities and academics.
The academics interviewed were concerned that younger staff could suffer from the emphasis on a track record that could be exploited in assessment submissions. It was also feared that the RAE was making academics publish too early in their careers. Professor Kogan and Ms Henkel wrote that junior academics now accepted that they would publish regularly and often.
But, they said, despite the conflict between teaching and research, most young academics were committed to combining the two and had commitment to traditional academic values and relatively high morale.
The paper also stated that teaching quality assessments had not altered academics' educational concepts or methods, but had reinforced changes caused by wider social and economic movements.
In the past two decades, the researchers found, the academic profession had increasingly been forced to respond to external direction, massification and tightening control of public funds.