Research profile clusters among lecturers in non-traditional higher education. An exploratory analysis in the Swiss context

Abstract

This article explores post-reform clusters of individual research profiles in non-traditional higher education through the case of lecturers employed by Swiss universities of applied sciences and universities of teacher education. As elsewhere in Europe, former vocational training institutions in Switzerland were transformed into higher education institutions that each had to build a research capacity. The reliance on the integration of teaching and research at the level of the individual lecturer in this complex endeavor implies that lecturers have a role in fulfilling the public research mission. In order to empirically investigate the current outcome of the reform process, lecturers are clustered using variables related to their research role from recent survey data (N = 2454). The eleven variables used for this purpose are predominantly competence and task related, but also include demographic and motivational aspects. The findings regarding the resulting clusters empirically illustrate that the mission drift in Swiss non-traditional higher education has affected the individual research role differently. Considerable differences between lecturers within the sector exist and they can be clustered into only two similarly sized distinct profile groups. While one exhibits values for the analyzed variables suggesting that research has a low priority, the other is comprised of productive, competent, and motivated researchers. Possible ramifications of the clusters are discussed and in conclusion, several conceptual implications are drawn.