EVALUATION OF ACTIVITIES OF RESEARCH AND PEDAGOGICAL EMPLOYEES IN THE CONTEXT OF INSTITUTIONAL POLICY OF UNIVERSITIES
Authors:   Institute of Higher Education of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, YAROSHENKO Olha 
Published: January 2023

Introduction. This paper examines the factors, which ensure quality evaluation of activities of scientific and teaching staff in the context of institutional policy of Ukrainian universities. Ukrainian educational institutions are focused on the European vector of development, due to which evaluation of scientific and teaching staff has become a component of internal quality assurance in tertiary education. Enjoying the right of institutional autonomy, universities independently develop regulations and procedures for its implementation. At present, every educational institution has accumulated sufficient experience in evaluating activities of scientific and teaching staff, hence studying and generalizing this experience are of considerable scientific interest, since it has practical application. The latest publications on the problem under discussion almost exclusively emphasize the significance of rating activities of scientific and teaching staff, and disclose appropriate methods of doing this. The role of institutional autonomy in organizing and conducting such a rating alongside the trends of developing and improving evaluation remain either unexplored or deficient in support. With this in view, these issues are brought to the forefront of this study. Purpose. The article is aimed at exposing the results of a comparative analysis of experiences gained by Ukrainian universities in evaluating activities of scientific and teaching staff, and outlining prospects for further development of this component of internal quality assurance in tertiary education with regard to the goal of evaluation results. Methods. In the course of investigation, multiple research methods have been employed, specifically analysis, comparison, in-depth examination and generalization of foreign experiences in evaluating activities of scientific and teaching staff; in addition, a corresponding survey has been conducted, based on the data received from questionnaires of pedagogical personnel. Results. The analysis of the institutional policy of tertiary education institutions concerning evaluation of activities of scientific and teaching staff has revealed that teacher and student ratings dominate in Ukrainian universities. The results of the conducted survey illustrate that among 209 scientific and pedagogical workers of 41 higher educational institutions, 179 respondents, or 85.6%, prioritized a teacher rating of professional activities of scientific and pedagogical staff, whereas 121 respondents hierarchized a student rating. The percentage of responses indicating the use of other types of evaluation is low. In contradistinction to Ukrainian practices, in European and American educational contexts, student ratings rank above all others. In addition to the abovementioned types of evaluation, foreign universities practice expert evaluation, evaluation by teachers, and evaluation by stakeholders. With the strengthening of institutional autonomy, the procedure of evaluating activities of scientific and teaching staff has acquired the integrity, which is exposed in the article progressively at the institutional and personal levels. Originality. This study is innovative since it has pioneered evaluation of activities of scientific and teaching staff and divulged it as a holistic process at the institutional and personal levels with clearly distinguished stages /steps. Conclusion. Institutional autonomy enables universities to independently conduct and improve evaluation of activities of scientific and teaching staff. They are also open for study and dissemination of their own achievements along with adopting advanced ideas of Ukrainian and foreign experiences. Institutional autonomy fosters continuous improvement and elaboration of quality indicators and procedures of rating activities of scientific and teaching staff. Among evaluation methods, Ukrainian institutions of tertiary education prioritize self-assessment by scientific and teaching staff, and questioning of students. Foreign practices expand ratings to testing and electronic portfolio. The article provides implications for further research of the issue under discussion in such areas as a contrastive analysis of Ukrainian and foreign experiences in a student rating of scientific and teaching staff, and conducting a pedagogical experiment on expert evaluation of professional activities of teachers.