No abstract

This article describes the ramifications that recent organisational changes in the Spanish higher education sector have had on levels of job satisfaction among teaching staff. The research gathered their opinions on recent changes affecting their teaching duties, using job satisfaction scales in different areas of their academic work. The results point to a large number who claim to have seen their job satisfaction diminish over the period in which the organisational changes have taken hold. This sense of loss of job satisfaction is positively and significantly related to growing standardisation and to the erosion of the principles of collegiality, but negatively to the initiatives for improving the coordination between teaching staff and the assessment of the quality of their work.

This article sets out to investigate the notions Spanish university teaching staff have of quality in education, on the assumption that those notions give a reliable picture of the attitudes of teaching staff towards education policy design and university management. The paper takes an empirical approach, collecting opinions telematically via a questionnaire. The responses show that teaching staff prefer modern notions of quality in teaching, and those closer to the culture of their educational institutions, but are not confident that their managers share those preferences. The opinions of teaching staff can provide useful information for the design of education policies and quality management systems applicable to Spanish universities.

The literature on quality management at higher education institutions has for some time been working on the basis of two issues: a) the diversity of ideas as to what “quality” means, which makes it harder to apply the principles of quality management in this context; and b) the idea that this diversity is in some way a response to the different positions occupied by stakeholders in regard to the processes and institutions of the sector. It has been suggested that students, employers, administrations in charge of funding and academics may hold different positions concerning the purposes of universities and, therefore, concerning the criteria on which their quality should be assessed. However, those stakeholders have rarely been asked directly what concept of quality they defend. This paper presents the results of a survey of deans of Spanish university faculties and schools in which this question was put to them. Their answers contrast with some of the commonplaces of current literature.