Academic evaluation and modification of the incentive regulations in a public university

disagreements and rebellion of academics

Abstract

The objective of the article is to present research results on the experiences and vicissitudes of academics and university officials of a higher education institution located in the North of Mexico, on the modifications to the Regulation of the Teaching Performance Incentives Program that determines how academic evaluation should be carried out. The findings emerged from two research processes with two methodologies: grounded theory and ethnography. The first allowed us to establish the connection between the theory and the emerging data to systematize the findings without predetermined categories to examine the field work. The second recognizes subjectivity as a basis for the analysis, but endorses its ethical position and political commitment, which is characterized by the researcher spending a prolonged time in the space studied and without manipulating the data. The literature presented refers to academic evaluation as a desirable program to improve academic productivity or, in contrast, as a means of control and power of the administration over those evaluated. This discrepancy generated confrontation among the teaching staff because they were excluded from the changes made to the regulations, such as increasing tutoring hours, obtaining postgraduate degrees to compete in the program, and decreasing monetary rewards. The above emerges from the testimonies of the informants documented through interviews and participant observation to describe the events noted in a field diary, such as the 2011 rebellion.