From industry to instructor

Abstract

This doctoral research study examined how professional-technical faculty experienced their onboarding and support as they transitioned from industry into teaching. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven professional-technical instructors who were within their first five years of full-time employment at a two-year community college in Washington State. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), five subordinate themes and four emerging themes aligned with the theoretical framework of Transformational Learning Theory emerged during data analysis, leading to three major findings. The first is that professional-technical faculty do not fully understand the role they are taking on when agreeing to teach as a full-time tenure track faculty member. The second is that onboarding support for professional-technical faculty does not begin soon enough to ensure their success. Finally, the third is that existing formal onboarding processes do not provide the necessary support that all professional-technical faculty need to be successful. These findings were considered within the context of the current literature regarding onboarding and support for faculty and adds to the minimal research literature about community college professional-technical faculty specifically. --Author's abstract