Academic Job Satisfaction Research: Conceptual Framework for Russia

Abstract

Digital transformation, revising the principles of the Bologna system, new directions of academic contacts – this is not even the full list of challenges faced by Russian universities. University teachers have to respond to them, which might lead to increased stress levels and calls for more careful monitoring of the dynamics of overall job satisfaction in academia. Despite research on academic job satisfaction being available, its mutual verification is difficult, since there is no general theoretical and methodological framework for this kind of research, and the set of common indicators is not adapted to Russian realities. In addition, a serious problem when it comes to academic job satisfaction surveys is the administrative divide between whoever initiated the research and teaching staffers, who becomes an object of research with reduced agency. The authors of the article propose an approach based on experience in monitoring the teaching staff’s attitude towards current challenges, which would combine quantitative and qualitative survey methods and focus on universal job satisfaction domains at the university. Choosing relevant academic job satisfaction domains that comprehensively characterize the working conditions of a university teacher should be justified during a series of testing studies, and most importantly — an internal sociological discussion.