Changing Academic Work Roles: The everyday realities challenging quality in teaching

A national survey of academics in Australian universities provides the basis for this discussion of changing work practices influencing the quality of teaching. The paper reports the shifts in time and commitment to teaching over the last decade, the impact of changes in approaches to teaching on academic workloads, and the everyday obstacles that academics identify as hindering their teaching. The paper also identifies some aspects of diversity in the work experiences of academics. Work role problems are not experienced in the same way by academics at different ages and career stages, or indeed, in different institutions and disciplinary fields. This diversity presents a major difficulty for national and institutional efforts aimed at addressing the growing problems associated with changes in academic work. The paper suggests that academic workloads and work roles have reached a critical point where nothing short of major reform will be adequate if efforts to improve the quality of teaching are to be achieved.