The continuing training of the teachers in the strategic plans of the spanish universities

Abstract

The present work investigates a sample of 45 Strategic Plans applied by the same number of Spanish universities between the years 2000 and 2020, to learn the relevance and the treatment that continued training of Teaching and Research Staff receives in the strategic plans. The content analysis method has been used to identify and compute objectives and different aspects that universities explicitly relate to the training of teachers in these plans. The repertoire of variables has been elaborated inductively through the continuous review of the documents.
The results allow us to appreciate that continuing training of teaching and research staff is taken into account in the universities’ plans. However, this training receives unequal and generally unsystematic treatment in the corporate documents; moreover, universities tend to emphasize some topics to the detriment of others, focusing mainly on teaching and very little on the management and development of directive functions. Finally, the universities, as a whole but not individually, associate the continued training of the teachers with a wide and varied repertoire of topics, which suggests the possibility of moving forward to a more articulated and integral model of continuing training applicable to the set of Spanish universities.
We believe the results are useful in order to improve the content and planning of the continuing training of the teachers with a more systematic and integral focus, considering the importance of the training of teachers and researchers for the management of the changes that universities propose, especially taking into account the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic is having on the digital and pedagogical transformation of universities.