All-in-One Academics

Abstract

The changing nature of higher education systems and academic work all around the world generally and in Turkey specifically highlight the need for academics to use, analyze, and process so much information simultaneously, and deliver results at a specific period of time, which cause them mental workload. Thus, this chapter addresses the problem of understanding and exploring the dynamics of mental workload in Turkish academic setting. The main data for the analysis comes from a wide field research, including 505 questionnaires and 45 in-depth interviews with academics in various universities of Turkey. The mixed methods research revealed that growing publication pressures, administrative work, teaching and supervision hours, the unpredictability of academic positions, the curse of flexibility, and the bureaucratic nature of universities are some of the factors, leading to mental workload in Turkish academia. The other dynamics, such as academic incentive system, demanding nomination/promotion criteria, lack of family-work life balance, were also explored.