Competencies of University Teachers and Changes for Working in the Knowledge Society

Abstract

In a post-industrial society, knowledge has replaced capital as the main source of economic development in developed and developing countries. Due to the fact that universities have traditionally been places of research and "knowledge production", it has become necessary to analyze higher education systems in order to rationalize them and stimulate their maximum efficiency. Universities are required to contribute to the building of a knowledge-based society. At the same time, demands placed on the academic profession are also increasing, as it is expected to improve the quality of teaching, pursue research projects, and deal with managerial and administrative tasks, regardless of the already existing scientific research and teaching workload. Hence, apart from the traditional activities such as research and teaching, competencies of university teachers now also include the ability to do institutional work, cooperation with other institutions, administrative and managerial activities, use of new knowledge in solving social problems, and contribution to the development of civil society and democracy. European education policies particularly emphasize the importance of strengthening the quality of teaching and establishing connections between research and the learning and teaching process in higher education. In Croatia, however, the official system of professional advancement continues to reward research and publication of scientific papers at the expense of teaching competencies, although administrative and guidance roles are gaining more importance as of late. This article aims to examine the attitudes of university teachers towards the competencies needed to work at a university and to establish whether they accept the new roles related to institutional contribution. For the needs of this research, a questionnaire was constructed, whose reliability was determined based on the obtained data and measured using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient α = 0,882. The research was based on a quantitative and qualitative methodology which included an analysis of the relevant literature and an inquiry into teachers' attitudes. SPSS Statistics software package was used for the descriptive and factor analysis of data, and the results showed that the respondents believe research and teaching competencies to be more important than the ones related to the institutional contribution, i.e. those of administrative and managerial character.