Scholars' views on the fears of underlying resistance to change in German higher education

The aim of the study is to identify the recent changes in German higher education, to detect whether there is resistance to change or not and to describe the fears underlying resistance to change. The case of the study, which was designed as a case study from qualitative research approaches, was determined as the process of change in German higher education. Four participants were included in the study by criterion sampling method. Participation in the research is voluntary. One-to-one interviews were conducted with the participants through a semi-structured interview form. The interviews lasted approximately 50 minutes. During the interview, the participants' approaches to the questions posed, their gestures and facial expressions were observed and recorded with the note-taking technique. The data obtained from the university archieve within the knowledge of the relevant higher education institution covering the study group were enriched by applying the document analysis method. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze the data obtained at the end of the interviews. After the coding process, the findings were grouped under three main themes: (i) characteristics of change , consisting of the sub-themes of unpredictability, speed and uncontrollability of change; (ii) types of change, consisting of the sub-themes of excellence initiative, demographic change, urgent transition to distance education and state law change; and (iii) resistance to change, consisting of the sub-themes of beliefs, tyranny of tradition/ technological illiteracy (the feel of inadequacy) and psychological impact (fear of the unknown, anxiety, stress). These findings gathered in the study were associated with chaos theory. In addition, the individual experiences of the participants were analyzed in depth and their suggestions on change management were included. It is anticipated that the results of the study, which deals with the possible resistance that may ocur in higher education, especially in case of sudden change, and the measures that can be taken against the resistance, will contribute to the field.