Improving engagement in an early career academic setting: can existing models guide early career academic support strategies?

ABSTRACT

Early career academics (ECAs) represent the future of the academic workforce, but competition and career uncertainty is resulting in disengagement and burnout. In professions outside academia, increased engagement is associated with perceived organisational support and fair recognition and rewards, as well as opportunities to meet basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. In contrast, decreased engagement is linked with increasing demands on effort and over-commitment to work. The current study used multiple linear regression to test whether comparable relationships were observed in a sample of 151 ECAs in an Australian university. Opportunities to build and demonstrate competence at work, the presence of meaningful relationships and perceived organisational support were independent and statistically significant predictors of engagement. The need for autonomy and fair rewards and recognition appeared to be correlated but not statistically significant predictors of engagement. Contrary to prediction, increasing effort and over-commitment to work did not predict decreases in engagement. These results are discussed in light of implications for programs designed to support the development of ECAs into various career pathways.

KEYWORDS:

• Early career academics
• workplace engagement
• competence
• relatedness
• autonomy

Acknowledgement

Input into this research was sought from key stakeholders in the Early Career Researcher Network at Macquarie University during inception of the study and throughout recruitment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Lois Meyer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7062-3631

Agnes Bosanquet http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2563-6120

Lesley Hughes http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0313-9780