More A’s and I get to stay? How grading influences employment outcomes for contingent faculty

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research has shown that changes in job security cause changes in grading behavior for lecturer faculty, but the impact of grading practices on future workload assignments is unknown. In this paper we use a detailed dataset of lecturers at a large public university to test the theory that awarding higher grades improves the probability of positive employment outcomes in the future. Lecturers that award higher grades receive significantly higher workload hours, are more likely to have their entitlement met and to receive repeat course assignments in the future, and these effects are larger for lecturers on contracts with more uncertainty.