Abstract
According to the World Bank the main challenge of higher education system in Georgia is the quality of education.
The main determinant of education quality in any university is its academic personnel, so the administrations of universities should take care not only attracting new professionals, but to use the maximum potential of exiting professors.
The main issue which deteriorates effectiveness of academic staff is demotivation, as qualitative academic pursuit is difficult to carry among demotivated staff. Since there no relevant studies, we don’t have information as to what kinds of factors determine demotivation among academic personnel at Ilia State University. The purpose of this study is to identify these factors. Specifically the questions of this research are:
What kinds of factors determine demotivation among academic personnel?
Are the most important factors of demotivation, external motivation or internal one?
Is there a difference through the demotivation in the gender perspective?
The research was carried out by mixed methodology: within the qualitative research we conducted face-to-face interview with 23 professors and 80 professors participated in quantitative research.
According to the research, it was established, that at the Ilia State University, the following factors determine academic personnel’s demotivation:
The factors related to students (uninterested student, unprepared student), attitude from administration, preferences given to professors foreseen the personal relationship and not by their merits, interfere of administration into the student assessment process, increasing the amount of students in the group without lecturers’ permission. The significant factor of demotivation was also cited the absence of possibility of interacting with colleagues. As well as factors of demotivation were also cited daily grind (working routine), when the main work for academic personnel is teaching not the research. The lowest marks for demotivation factors were the lack of educational resources and physical environment of the university.
As a result of quantitative research by 27,5%, the most significant factor of demotivation, were named uninterested, demotivated students themselves. According to the academic literature, we conclude the internal factor, which is related to the content of work and not the external stimuli.
65% of the academic personnel participating in the study were female, while 35% were male. The answers to the most important issue of demotivation were examined separately by women and by men, it was revealed that, for 28.7% of men the most significant factor of demotivation is uninterested student, whereas, 28.8% of women answered the same. As it is seen, in this regard, there are no differences in answers between men and women professors.
This research will be helpful for university administration to make the right direction to the reforms and to draw attention to the issues which highly likely were not considered as problems before this.
Key words: the factors of demotivation for academic personnel, demotivated student, gender aspects.
Author of the Research Mukhran Guliashvili
mukhrani.guliashvili.1@iliauni.edu.ge
see full document in attached fileმუხრან გულიაშვილი-სამაგისტრო ნაშრომი 26.06.2017