The Australian Academic Profession : a first overview.

Hamish Coates, ACER
L Goedegebuure
J Van der Lee
L Meek

Abstract

This paper provides a first preliminary analysis of the Australian Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey results. The Australian survey closed in early December 2007. Given the time necessary to clean and organise the database, there obviously has been little time to engage in in-depth statistical interrogation of the data. Nonetheless, even a cursory glance at the responses indicates a very rich and interesting data set that will lend itself to on-going analysis over the next months if not years. To contextualise the outcomes of the survey, this paper begins with a few words on the background to Australian higher education, reminding the reader of some of the profound changes experienced by the sector over the last couple of decades. The next section summarises the methodological approach to sampling adopted by the Australian team. A rigorous sampling methodology has been used which allows for a high degree of confidence in the generalisability of responses (the overall response rate was approximately 25 percent, slightly below the target rate of 30 percent but delivering an appropriate effective sample size). An overview of the first key outcomes is the subject of the next section of the paper. The authors conclude with a few summary statements and an indication of what the next round of data analysis offers.