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COMPARING THE UNIVERSITY-LEVEL ENVIRONMENT IN THE

AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY WITH OTHER AUSTRALIAN
UNIVERSITIES
Jeffrey P. Dorman

Online publication date: 29 October 2010

To cite this Article Dorman, Jeffrey P.(2002) 'COMPARING THE UNIVERSITY-LEVEL ENVIRONMENT IN THE
AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY WITH OTHER AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES', Christian Higher Education, 1:
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COMPARING THE UNIVERSITY-LEVEL ENVIRONMENT

IN THE AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY
WITH OTHER AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES

JEFFREY P. DORMAN
School of Education, Australian Catholic University, Everton Park,
Queensland, Australia
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Research that compared the university-level environment in the Australian

Catholic University with other Australian universities was conducted. An
instrument that assesses seven dimensions of the university-level environment
(viz., Academic Freedom, Concern for Undergraduate Learning, Concern for
Research and Scholarship, Empowerment, Affiliation, Mission Consensus, and
Work Pressure) was administered to a sample of 519 faculty from 62 departments
in 28 Australian universities including the Australian Catholic University
(ACU). Results showed that, in general, the environment in ACU was not as
positive as that found in the other universities. In particular, Academic Freedom
and Concern for Research and Scholarship was significantly less in ACU
compared to all types of universities. These results suggest that ACU has to make
substantial gains if its environment is to compare favorably with the environment
in other Australian universities.

Higher education in Australia has undergone a substantial trans-

formation during the past 15 years. According to the Department
of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA, 1998b), dra-
matic changes have occurred in size, structure, funding arrange-
ments, and focus of higher education institutions. The binary
system which separated 19 universities from 69 colleges of advanced
education was abolished in 1987 in favor of a Unified National
System (UNS). Amalgamations and mergers resulted in there be-
ing 36 publicly-funded universities in the UNS in 1994. Various
research studies have investigated a range of issues relating to these
massive structural changes (Harman & Wood, 1990; Mahony, 1990,
1993, 1996; Moses & Ramsden, 1992). Compounding these changes
has been the extraordinarily high enrollment growth during this

Address correspondence to Dr. Jeffrey Dorman, School of Education, Australian

Catholic University, P.O. Box 247, Everton Park, Queensland 4053, Australia. E-mail:
jdorman@mcauley.acu.edu.au

39
 40 J. P. Dorman

time with total student numbers increasing from 394,000 in 1987

to 695,000 in 1989 (DETYA, 2001b). In 2001, there were 14,751
higher degree research students, and this had risen to 34,070 in
1997 (Pearson, 1999).
There are two important characteristics of Australian tertiary
education that are not often recognized internationally. First, there
has been a long history of government funding for Australian uni-
versities. Presently, there are 37 government-funded and two pri-
vate universities in Australia. Despite its links with Roman
Catholicism, the Australian Catholic University (ACU) is a pub-
licly-funded university. The separation of church and state is not
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an issue in Australian primary, secondary, and tertiary education.

Students attending ACU pay the same fees as their counterparts at
the other 36 public universities. These fees are set down by gov-
ernment legislation. Second, differences need to be noted in the
degree-granting status of Australian universities compared to that
in other western democracies (e.g., United States of America). All
Australian universities are doctoral degree-granting institutions.
In the Australian context, institutions that cannot grant doctoral
degrees are not universities. While no Australian university is pre-
cluded from conferring doctoral degrees, it is true that the univer-
sities established since 1987 have only a small proportion of the
higher degree research student cohort. Research is heavily con-
centrated in the old, well-established universities (DETYA, 1998b,
2001a).
One outcome of the reorganization of Australian tertiary edu-
cation has been the formation of the Australian Catholic Univer-
sity (ACU). The focus of the present article is the university-level
environment in ACU and whether ACU has established an envi-
ronment that is similar to other Australian universities. Before
describing the present research, brief descriptions of ACU and
the field of university-level environment research are provided.

The Australian Catholic University

The Australian Catholic University began in 1991 with the amal-

gamation of four Catholic institutions of higher education. As pre-
viously noted, ACU is a public university, funded by the Australian
government. It is open to people of all religious beliefs or back-
 The Australian Catholic University 41

grounds. It is committed to a Catholic ethos and seeks to foster

and promote teaching, research, and scholarship in accordance
with Christian principles and traditions. ACU had 9,713 students
in 2000 (DETYA, 2001b) which represents a 21.7% increase in
enrollments since 1992. This shift in enrollments compares with a
24.3% increase for all Australian universities. According to its web
site, Australian Catholic University (2001) has a commitment to
quality in teaching, research, and service. It aspires to be a com-
munity characterized by free inquiry and academic integrity. The
ACU mission statement asserts:
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The University’s inspiration, located within 2,000 years of Catholic

intellectual tradition, summons it to attend to all that is of concern to
human beings. It brings a distinctive spiritual perspective to the common
tasks of higher education. Through advancing knowledge in education,
health, commerce, the humanities, the sciences and technologies, and
the creative arts, Australian Catholic University seeks to make a specific
contribution to its local, national and international communities. In its
endeavors, it is guided by a fundamental concern for justice and equity,
and for the dignify of all human beings (ACU, 2001, p. 2)

University Environment Research

The present research builds upon and extends research conducted

over the past 30 years in the learning environment field. These
studies, conducted mainly in primary and secondary schools in
the United States and Australia, have provided strong and con-
vincing evidence that the quality of the learning environment is
an important determinant of student learning. While some uni-
versity studies have investigated environment in tutorials and work-
shops (Clarke, 1998; Fraser, 1998a, 1998b; Fraser & Treagust, 1986;
Yarrow, Millwater, & Fraser, 1997) and departments (Gaff, Crombag
& Chang, 1976; van Rooijen, 1986), few research studies have in-
vestigated institutional or university-level environment. This field
was pioneered by Pace and his colleagues (Pace, 1969; Pace & Stern,
1958; Stern, 1970) who developed the College and University Envi-
ronment Scales. Another program of research in the United States
resulted in the Institutional Functioning Inventory (Peterson, Cen-
tra, Hartnett, & Linn, 1983). The instrument used in the present
study was based on this institutional environment research.
 42 J. P. Dorman

Design of Present Study

The research reported in this article was part of a wider study of

learning environment in Australian universities. Specifically, the
present research sought to identify major differences between the
university-level environment in the Australian Catholic University
and four types of universities (see below). The overall design of
the study was ex post facto with survey research methods employed
to collect data.

Sample
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A sample of 519 academics from 28 of the 37 government-funded

Australian universities returned university-level environment ques-
tionnaires. This represented an overall response rate of 87%. Aus-
tralia has only two private universities and the university sample
drawn for this study reflected the diversity in the population of
Australian universities. To provide an appropriate cross-section of
the population, academics were drawn from 62 departments of
three general types: Education, Science, and English. Participants
included academics from four types of universities: old universi-
ties, pre-1987 comprehensive universities, universities of technol-
ogy which have a developing research focus, and post-1987 new
universities that were colleges of advanced education in the old
binary system. This four-group classification was developed by
Marginson (1997) and has been employed by Ramsden (1998).
As Ramsden suggests, the classification is robust and makes good
common sense. While the Australian Catholic University could be
classified as a post-1987 new university, it was considered to be in a
fifth group on its own due to the requirements of the present study
(see Table 1).

Assessment of University-Level Environment

The instrument used to assess academics’ perceptions of univer-

sity-level environment consisted of 42 items with six items allocated
to each of seven scales (see Table 2). Academics responded to each
item using a five-point Likert response format (viz., Strongly Agree
= 5, Agree = 4, Not Sure = 3, Disagree = 2, Strongly Disagree = 1).
An important characteristic of learning environment instruments
 The Australian Catholic University 43

TABLE 1. Description of Sample

Faculty/Department/School
Education Science/Health Arts/English/
University Type Science a Communication b Total
Old universities 40 (6) 31(5) 44 (6) 115 (17)
Pre-1987 39 (6) 31 (8) 33 (5) 103 (19)
Comprehensive
universities
Former Institutes of 31 (4) 28 (3) 27 (3) 86 (10)
Technology
Other New 27 (3) 43 (6) 25 (4) 95 (13)
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Universities
(post-1987)
Australian Catholic 44 (1) 35 (1) 41 (1) 120 (3)
University
Total 181 (20) 168 (23) 170 (19) 519 (62)
Note. The number of departments is given in parentheses.
a
If there was no Faculty of Science in a particular university, the Faculty of Health Science
was surveyed.
b
In some universities, English was within a larger Arts faculty. English and Communication
departments were considered equivalent.

is coverage of Moos’s (1974) three categories of human environ-

ments: Personal Development (the basic directions along which
personal growth and self-enhancement occur), Relationship (the
extent to which people are involved in the environment and sup-
port and help each other), and System Maintenance and System
Change (the extent to which the environment is orderly, clear in
expectations, maintains control and is responsive to change). As
shown in Table 2, the instrument has three Personal Development,
two Relationship, and two System Maintenance and System Change
scales.
Estimates of the internal consistency of the seven scales were
calculated using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. As shown in Table
3, these coefficients ranged from 0.65 for the Concern for Research
and Scholarship scale to 0.87 for the Affiliation scale. Item-scale
correlations confirmed that all items has been assigned to the ap-
propriate scale.
Another desirable scale characteristic is discriminant validity
(i.e., minimal scale overlap). Table 3 reports discriminant validity
data using the mean correlation of a scale with the remaining six
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44
TABLE 2. Descriptive Information for Seven University-Level Environment Scales
Moos’s
Scale Scale Description Typical Item Schemaa
Academic The extent to which staff and students Staff and students may discuss any topic. P
Freedom have academic freedom. (+)
Concern for The extent to which university Staff members are sensitive to the P
Undergraduate processes and teaching approaches interests, needs and aspirations of
Learning emphasise a concern for undergraduate undergraduates. (+)
learning.
Concern for The extent to which the university Senior academics do not emphasise P
Research & emphasises research and scholarship. research as an important institutional
Scholarship purpose. (–)
Empowerment The extent to which academics are My superiors deal with me in an R
empowered and encouraged to be authoritarian manner. (–)
involved in decision making.
Affiliation The extent to which academics can obtain I can rely on my colleagues for R
assistance, advice and encouragement and assistance if I need it. (+)
are made to feel accepted by colleagues.
Mission The extent to which consensus exists Lecturers agree on the university’s S
Consensus within the staff with regard to the overall goals. (+)
overarching goals of the university.
Work Pressure The extent to which work pressure There is constant pressure on academics S
dominates the environment. to keep working. (+)
a
P: Personal Development; R: Relationship; S: System Maintenance and System Change
 The Australian Catholic University 45

TABLE 3. Internal Consistency Reliability (Coefficient Alpha), Discriminant

Validity (Mean Correlation) and ANOVA Results for Department Membership
for Seven University Environment Scales
Coefficient Mean ANOVA Results
Scale Alpha Correlation F(61, 457) Eta2
Academic Freedom .74 .33 2.95** .29
Concern for Undergraduate .72 .23 1.72* .19
Learning
Concern for Research & .65 .24 6.80** .48
Scholarship
Empowerment .82 .38 2.31** .24
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Affiliation .87 .38 1.50* .17

Mission Consensus .78 .30 1.75* .18
Work Pressure .78 .05 1.38* .15
* **
p <0.05 p <0.001

scales as a convenient index. These data indicate that the scales do

overlap but not to an extent that would violate the instrument’s
psychometric properties. Additionally, the conceptual distinctive-
ness of each of the scales warrants their retention in the instru-
ment.
A final scale characteristic is that each scale should be sensi-
tive to differences between the environment in each department.
To explore this issue, one-way ANOVAs for each environment scale,
with the department as the main effect, were performed on the
data. As shown in Table 3, these tests showed that each scale differ-
entiated between departments. An estimate of the proportion of
variance in scale scores attributable to department membership is
provided by the eta2 statistic, which is the ratio of ‘between’ to
‘total’ sums of squares (Cohen & Cohen, 1975). Table 3 shows
that these eta2 values ranged from 15% for the Work Pressure scale
to 48% for the Concern for Research and Scholarship scale. Fur-
ther details on the development and validation of the instrument
are available elsewhere (see Dorman, 1999).

Data Analysis

As indicated above, ACU was taken as a group in its own right.

Inferential tests of statistical significance (MANOVA, ANOVA and
the Tukey honestly significantly different post-hoc procedure) us-
 46 J. P. Dorman

ing the university type as the grouping variable were employed.

Scale means and standard deviations and effect sizes for all com-
parisons were calculated. Cohen’s d, the difference in group means
per full sample standard deviation, was taken as an appropriate
effect size index (Cohen, 1977).

Results

To explore differences between ACU and other types of universi-

ties, a MANOVA with the seven university-level environment scales
as the set of dependent variables and type of university as the group-
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ing variable was performed on the data. This test was significant (p
< .001) with Wilks’ Λ = 0.49. Univariate F tests investigating the
effect of university type on each scale revealed that the five univer-
sity types differed significantly on all seven scales: Academic Free-
dom, F(4, 515) = 21.76, p < .001; Concern for Undergraduate
Learning, F(4,515) = 2.93, p < .05; Concern for Research and Schol-
arship, F(4,515) = 62.58, p < .001; Empowerment, F(4,515) = 10.37,
p < .001; Affiliation, F(4,515 = 2.50), p < .05; Mission Consensus,
F(4, 515) = 2.44, p < .05; Work Pressure, F(4,515) = 3.40, p < .01.
Mean scale scores for each university type are shown in Table 4.
It is clear from Table 4 that sizable differences exist between the
perceptions of faculty in ACU compared to those at other univer-
sities on most learning environment scales. To investigate specific
pairs of university types for which statistically significant differences
were evident, Tukey’s honestly significantly different (HSD) post-
hoc procedure was employed. With an alpha level of .05, it was
found that significant differences existed for comparisons of ACU
with Old Universities on all scales except Affiliation. Similarly, sig-
nificant differences existed for comparisons of ACU with Pre-1987
Comprehensive Universities on all scales except Concern for Un-
dergraduate Learning and Mission Consensus. For comparisons
of ACU with Former Institutes of Technology, Tukey’s procedure
revealed statistically significant differences on four scales: Academic
Freedom, Concern for Research and Scholarship, Empowerment,
and Work Pressure. Finally, Academic Freedom and Concern for
Research and Scholarship differed significantly between ACU and
Other New Universities. Of the 28 post-hoc comparisons conducted
here, 17 were significant at an alpha level of .05. This probability is
about 12 times that which could be expected by chance alone.
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TABLE 4. University-Level Environment Scale Means, Standard Deviations and Tukey HSD Test Results for Five University Types
University Type
Pre-1987 Former Other New
ACU Old Comprehensive Institutes of Universities
Universities Universities Technology (post-1987)
Scale M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
Academic Freedom 18.13 4.08 21.91a 3.01 21.84a 3.07 21.00a 3.94 20.83a 3.05
Concern for 21.27 3.58 19.64a 3.21 20.22 4.23 19.77 4.36 20.52 4.73
Undergraduate
Learning
Concern for Research & 17.00 3.96 23.85a 2.70 22.35a 3.23 21.28a 3.28 20.41a 3.18
Scholarship
Empowerment 18.98 5.17 22.92a 4.04 22.19a 4.75 21.16a 4.94 20.28 4.88
Affiliation 22.58 4.61 23.81 3.62 24.11a 3.69 23.10 4.51 22.14 4.66
Mission Consensus 16.32 4.02 17.68a 3.79 17.01 3.71 17.38 3.71 16.78 4.37
Work Pressure 23.64 4.16 25.37a 3.56 25.24a 3.19 25.24a 3.52 24.85 3.50
Note. Subscripted means differ significantly from the respective ACU scale mean in the same row at p < .05 in the Tukey HSD comparison.

47
 48 J. P. Dorman

While Table 4 provides an indication of the strength and di-

rection of these group differences, reporting effect sizes using
Cohen’s d can be useful. These have been assembled in Table 5.
Effect sizes for significant differences identified by the Tukey HSD
post-hoc procedure ranged from 0.34 (small) for the comparison
of Mission Consensus in ACU and Old Universities to 1.62 (very
large) for the comparison of Concern for Research and Scholar-
ship in ACU and Old Universities. Several other effect sizes would
be considered large to very large for this type of research. It is
noteworthy that only 1 of the 17 statistically significant post-hoc
comparisons was associated with an ACU scale score higher than
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the respective university group scale score (see Tables 4 & 5). Con-
cern for Undergraduate Learning was significantly higher in ACU
compared to Old Universities. Overall, this evidence indicates that
ACU’s university-level environment was not as positive as that in
other types of universities.

TABLE 5. Effect Sizes (Cohen’s d) for Four Different Comparisons of University

Environment
Comparisona
ACU with ACU with ACU with
ACU Pre-1987 Former Other New
with Old Comprehensive Institutes of Universities
Scale Universities Technology Universities (post-1987)
Academic Freedom 0.98 (–)a 0.75 (–)a 0.70 (–)a 0.70 (–)a
Concern for 0.41 (+)a 0.27 (+) 0.38 (+) 0.19 (+)
Undergraduate
Learning
Concern for Research 1.62 (–)a 1.24 (–)a 1.02 (–)a 0.81 (–)a
& Scholarship
Empowerment 0.79 (–)a 0.64 (–)a 0.44 (–)a 0.26 (–)
Affiliation 0.29 (–) 0.36 (–)a 0.12 (–) 0.10 (+)
Mission Consensus 0.34 (–)a 0.17 (–) 0.27 (–) 0.12 (+)
Work Pressure 0.46 (–)a 0.42 (–)a 0.42 (–)a 0.33 (–)
Note. Effect size directions. An ACU score higher than the respective university group is
indicated by +. An ACU score lower than the respective university group is indicated by –.
Subscripted effect sizes indicate that the Tukey HSD procedure for this comparison was
statistically significant at p < .05.
 The Australian Catholic University 49

Discussion

The results of this study are important to the Australian Catholic

University for at least three reasons. First, each of the above results
can be interpreted individually. Both Academic Freedom and Con-
cern for Research and Scholarship are significantly lower in ACU
compared to all other Australian university types. While these find-
ings could be reasonably expected when ACU is compared with
Old Universities, it is concerning that ACU scored significantly
lower than Other New Universities (post-1987) on both of these
scales. ACU would be classified as belonging to this group by
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DETYA (1998b).
The magnitude and direction of effect sizes for Concern for
Research and Scholarship reflect recent characteristics and per-
formance indicators reported by the Australian government
(DETYA, 1998b, 2001a). According to DETYA, significant varia-
tion exists between Australian universities especially in terms of
research productivity. Research quantum—a composite index that
objectifies university input (e.g., funding from national competi-
tive grants) and output (e.g., research publications, research de-
gree completions)—is used by the government to provide research
funding for universities. The disparity in research quantum among
the four type of universities is extreme. For example, in 1996,
whereas nine Old Universities shared 66.9% of total research quan-
tum, ten pre-1987 Comprehensive Universities shared 20.1%, six
Universities of Technology shared 7.4% and the twelve New Uni-
versities (post-1987) shared 5.6%. ACU’s grant proportion was
negligible and rounded to 0.0% in DETYA (1998b). The trend in
research income since 1996 has been remarkably similar. In 1999,
nine Old Universities shared 68.1% of total research income, ten
pre-1987 Comprehensive Universities shared 18.3%, six Universi-
ties of Technology shared 7.7% and the twelve New Universities
(post-1987) shared 5.9% (DETYA, 2001a). Even after taking into
account university size, these differences remain stark.
Second, the results reinforce the notion that amalgamating
and renaming colleges of advanced education as universities do
not, on its own, lead to environmental changes. Indeed, educa-
tional institutions are remarkably resilient to change with innova-
tions and their associated rhetoric incorporated into existing
 50 J. P. Dorman

patterns of behavior and beliefs (Popkewitz, 1983). It is extremely

difficult to mobilize bias that challenges the cultural norms and
ingrained college practices when the potential losers are the exist-
ing leaders. The results suggest that ACU has not focused suffi-
ciently on the development of strategic initiatives to enhance
research productivity. While managerial units (e.g., Research Ser-
vices) and appointments (e.g., Pro-Vice-Chancellor–Research) have
provided the imagery of research as important to the university,
the substance is that teaching and administration largely define
ACU academic work. The formal Enterprise Bargaining Agreement
of ACU provides intricate detail on teaching loads and time allow-
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ances for administrative responsibilities but time for research and

scholarship is unacknowledged. The underlying assumption is work
equates to teaching—a strong cultural belief in predecessor col-
leges of advanced education. Breaking this culture will require
effective and courageous leadership. It requires a quantum shift
in the thinking of those academic leaders who have the misguided
notion that universities have an administrative and managerial
culture as opposed to an academic culture. Moses and Ramsden
(1992) believed that a convergence in the UNS appeared to be
forming on what constitutes academic work (i.e., principally teach-
ing, research, and scholarship). The dilemma facing ACU and
other new universities is that they possess a significant proportion
of academics who do not wish to extend themselves through re-
search and scholarship. For ACU, generational change within the
faculty might be needed before substantial cultural shifts occur.
In line with trends in most western democracies, the Austra-
lian government has failed to fund universities adequately, espe-
cially during the massive enrollment increases of the 1990s. ACU
has little scope to effect substantial faculty change. If existing fac-
ulty refuse to change their behavioral norms, then faculty changes
need to occur. But the financial constraints on ACU preclude it
from recruiting staff who will shift the culture. Additionally the
concept of forced redundancies is not consistent with the Catho-
lic ethos that ACU embraces.
Third, the potential exists for academics in ACU to view their
university as a stepping stone to a “real” university career. If a re-
search and scholarship culture cannot be generated in the new
 The Australian Catholic University 51

universities, academics who are committed to a career rather than

simply a place in higher education will use ACU to acquire tertiary
teaching experience, doctoral qualifications, and links with other
researchers. Such academics would then leave ACU as opportuni-
ties to put into practice their expertise become available in other
types of universities that have scope for expansion due to their
established research productivity. Given that Australia has an ag-
ing university faculty with 35% of Australian academics aged over
50 in 1999 (DETYA, 1999), retirements during the next decade
will provide significant scope for those academics who want a ca-
reer to move to other tertiary institutions. Under these circum-
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stances, ACU could become simply a training ground for real

academics and a repository for others who simply want a place in
Australian tertiary education. Such a scenario would mean that
ACU has failed in its objective of becoming a bona fide Australian
university.

Conclusion

This article has reported a comparison of university-level environ-

ment in the Australian Catholic University and other types of Aus-
tralian universities. Using a seven-scale instrument, it was found
that, in general, ACU has a less favorable environment compared
to other universities. It has been argued that these environmental
differences reflect the cultural and historical characteristics of ACU
compared to other universities. It should be noted that the results
of this study are generalizable only to the population of Australian
universities from which the sample was drawn. Two directions of
further research are evident. First, analogous studies in other coun-
tries should be conducted. Such research would to seek to vali-
date the instrument in these settings and establish their patterns
of discrimination among universities. Second, longitudinal data
need to be collected so that trends in the environment of ACU
and other types of universities can be identified. Significant staff-
ing changes will occur in ACU during the next decade, and it is
hoped that ACU will experience cultural change and concomi-
tant improvements in its university-level environment.
 52 J. P. Dorman

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