Faculty Goals Research Articles

Influence of tenure policies on job satisfaction, motivations, and experiences of language teachers in Macau’s higher education

Despite being controversial, teacher tenure policies are understudied, particularly in higher education contexts outside the Western world. Using semi-structured interviews with 15 university faculty members, this study explored how tenure systems influence the teaching practices, motivations, and job satisfaction of language teachers in Macau's universities. It was revealed that Macau implemented competitive, “up or out” tenure policies that were based on research output. Faculty were anxious as vague expectations heightened research priorities over teaching quality and student support. Requirements also strained collegial relationships as faculty goals focused on promotion. Veteran professors demonstrated resilience, maintaining intrinsic motivation despite policies. They advocated improving policies by promoting transparency, balancing workloads, accommodating disciplines, and communicating effectively. Using empirical data, this study identifies key policy implications for supporting teacher motivation while balancing inequality constraints. It provides empirical insight into optimizing tenure for teacher engagement and fulfillment.

Revisiting faculty members’ goals for the undergraduate chemistry laboratory

Over a decade has passed since faculty members’ goals for the undergraduate chemistry instructional laboratory were first investigated on a large, national scale in the United States. This study revisits these goals, using data from a 2022 national survey of chemistry faculty members in the United States (n = 521) to investigate current objectives, including how those goals vary with course, institutional context, and receipt of funding for improving undergraduate chemistry courses. A modified version of the Faculty Goals for Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory Instrument was used to measure goals, with psychometric evidence providing support for its use across the studied contexts, with the exception of the general chemistry laboratory. Goals were associated with course and receipt of funding but not institution type, both with regard to institutions’ highest chemistry degree awarded and approval from the American Chemical Society to award certified bachelor's chemistry degrees. Results suggest that faculty members may adopt a distinct set of goals not immediately associated with the practice of chemistry in the general chemistry laboratory. Further, goals increasingly focus on providing research experience and cultivating disciplinary knowledge and skills with progression through the chemistry curriculum; this focus increases more abruptly when moving from large-enrollment lower-level courses to small-enrollment upper-level courses. Findings imply a need for increased efforts focused on (1) evaluating goals for the general chemistry laboratory, including whether those goals contribute to overarching curricular objectives, (2) promoting adoption of evidence-based pedagogies in large-enrollment contexts to better align instruction with the practice of chemistry, (3) supporting faculty members in procuring funding to improve courses, and (4) refining professional societies’ evaluation criteria for undergraduate chemistry programs.

Temporal dynamics between faculty goals, burnout/engagement, and performance in teaching and research: A latent change score approach

Motivation plays a central role in faculty members’ professional lives—with achievement goals having been found to have important links with their burnout/engagement and performance. However, the few studies investigating these links were cross-sectional and considered only one of the two equally important work domains of faculty members. In the present research, we analyze the temporal relationships between achievement goals and burnout/engagement as well as performance and investigate domain specificity of goal pursuit by considering goals for teaching and for research. We conducted a longitudinal study (4 measurement points across two years) including 681 German faculty members. Multivariate Latent Change Score modeling attested that in both domains, mastery-approach goals were positively related to subsequent development of performance, while performance was also positively related to subsequent development of mastery goals, creating a double positive loop. Performance goals and work-avoidance goals were differentially associated with performance in both domains, indicating that the effects of goals can be bound to different contextual features. For overall burnout/engagement, our results implied that primarily research goals mattered for its development (with performance-avoidance and work-avoidance goals being risk factors), while high burnout levels were associated with subsequent reduction of adaptive mastery-approach goals in both domains. This highlights the relevance of achievement goals for burnout/engagement and performance of faculty and illuminates their complex temporal dynamics that can also meaningfully inform achievement goal research in other contexts.

Faculty perspectives on facilitating medical students' longitudinal learning: A mixed-methods study.

Medical students' longitudinal care of patients supports clinical learning and promotes patient-centredness. The literature presents little empirically derived guidance for faculty to facilitate students' longitudinal learning and care. Informed by the conceptual framework of relational learning, this study investigated faculty perspectives about longitudinal teaching, their strategies for facilitating students' longitudinal learning and perceived barriers and enablers. Using a convergent mixed-methods approach at a single academic medical centre, the authors conducted a survey and two focus groups in 2018-2019 with faculty members teaching in three longitudinal clinical courses. Quantitative analyses included descriptive statistics and chi-square tests. Qualitative content analysis described deductive categories and identified inductive themes. Forty-three eligible faculty (69%) completed the survey. Ninety-one percent (n = 39) reported that teaching in a longitudinal model enhanced their experience as preceptors. Faculty described activities students performed to provide longitudinal care: spending time with patients independently (n = 38, 88%), making follow-up phone calls (n = 35; 81%) and participating in home- and community-based visits (n = 20, 47%), among others. Twelve faculty participated in two focus groups. Deductive analysis characterised strategies for facilitating students' longitudinal learning and barriers and enablers. Strategies included "encouraging students to follow patients," "faculty adaptability," "offering guidance and setting expectations," and "careful patient selection." Barriers included scheduling limitations, and enablers included student initiative. Inductive analysis identified two themes: faculty goals for students and faculty benefits from teaching. Goals included meaningful engagement with patients and their illness over time. Benefits from teaching included personal gratification, mentorship, and holistic student assessment. Our survey and focus group findings demonstrated positive faculty attitudes and experiences, characterised faculty goals and approaches, and identified elements of the educational context that hindered or facilitated longitudinal teaching and learning. This study's faculty perspectives build upon prior investigations of students' and patients' perspectives, offer teaching strategies, and may guide faculty development.

The Disruptive Physician and Our Role as Teachers.

The Disruptive Physician and Our Role as Teachers.

Audit Tata Kelola Teknologi Informasi Pada Perusahaan Menggunakan Domain DSS dan MEA Kerangka Kerja COBIT 2019 (Studi Kasus: Fakultas Teknik UNDIP)

Information technology is required by the Faculty of Engineering UNDIP to support the achievement of faculty goals. This faculty has implemented and relied on information technology for administrative processes, teaching, and learning activities although in performing its business processes since 2004. The problem found was the practices of information technology have been expected by the Faculty of Engineering UNDIP, or not yet. Therefore, research on the governance of IT audit is necessary to know which management objectives are important, the current capability level, comparison of IT governance conditions in 2014, which management objectives have been achieved, and provide some recommendations. This research method uses the COBIT 2019 on two parameters of the DSS and MEA. Based on the results of the research, the current capability level of the Faculty of Engineering according to the DSS and MEA domain of COBIT 2019 is at level 1 (performed) with an average value of 36%. The Faculty of Engineering has decreased level, but the goal has been more or less achieved through the practices of a set of incomplete/disorganized activities.

Transitioning From Training to Breast Imaging Practice: Building an Academic Career.

Launching an academic career in breast imaging presents both challenges and opportunities for the newly graduated trainee. A strategic plan aligned with one's personal strengths and interests facilitates career success and professional satisfaction. Academic departments offer multiple tracks to accommodate diverse faculty goals. The specific requirements of various tracks vary across institutions. The clinician-educator track typically encourages a focus on medical education and educational scholarship. The clinician-investigator or clinician-scholar track supports original research and grant-funded clinical trials. Finally, the clinical and clinician-administrator tracks allow for emphasis on clinical program development and leadership. As definitions of scholarship broaden, many opportunities are accessible to demonstrate excellence in the traditional areas of clinical practice, education, and research, as well as the broader fields of leadership and administration. Departmental and national society resources that advance knowledge in one's chosen area of interest are available and should be explored. Mentorship and sponsorship can provide valuable insight into identifying such resources and devising a plan for sustainable career success and work-life integration.

Need satisfaction and achievement goals of university faculty: an international study of their interplay and relevance

Previous research has successfully used basic psychological need satisfaction and achievement goal approaches for describing the motivations of university faculty for teaching and for explaining differences in faculty experiences, success, and learning. However, the interplay between these motivational constructs has been largely ignored, with only faculty from specific educational contexts being studied—neglecting those from other higher education systems and institution types that potentially differ in the configurations, levels, and effects of their motivations. As combining both approaches and examining multiple educational contexts is essential for a comprehensive theoretical understanding of faculty motivation and generalizable results, we conducted an international study including 1410 university faculty members from German, Indian, and US-American teaching and research universities. Aside from need satisfaction and achievement goals, we measured their positive affect, teaching quality, and professional learning. Results demonstrated measurement invariance of basic need and achievement goal scales regarding language, higher education context, and institution type. We found small differences in motivations between the three higher education contexts and negligible differences between institution types. Task, learning, and relational goals were positively and work avoidance goals were negatively linked to the outcome variables. Need satisfaction sensibly explained differences in pursuit of these goals, and—directly and indirectly through the goals—also the outcome variables. Taken together, these results provide international evidence for the importance of faculty motivation for teaching and illuminate how need satisfaction is relevant for goal pursuit, while both motivation approaches uniquely matter for faculty experiences, success, and learning.

A model for graduate nursing faculty teaching workload.

No one nursing faculty workload formula can be applied to every nursing program, but disseminating how workload formulas and policies are developed can guide programs in the development of their own policies. There is a scarcity of literature delineating workload models in nursing education, and, more specifically, in graduate nursing education. Creating a faculty teaching workload policy is a team effort involving both faculty and administrators. After reviewing available literature and several workload policies from university websites, a formula was trialed and revised. Its faculty teaching workload formula has components of many teaching responsibilities unique to nursing: clinical supervision, clinical coordination, academic advising, variance based on class size, etc. In addition, it presents a model for co-teaching workload units that may enrich student learning and faculty satisfaction. The success of this endeavor to date has been open faculty dialogue, common faculty goals, and a solid institutional vision.

Shifting from face-to-face to online teaching during COVID-19: The role of university faculty achievement goals for attitudes towards this sudden change, and their relevance for burnout/engagement and student evaluations of teaching quality

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many faculty members were required to abruptly shift from face-to-face to online teaching. Within this, some instructors managed well, while others struggled. To elucidate interindividual differences in online teaching and learning during this unexpected circumstance, we focus on faculty members’ attitudes towards this shift and examine their associations with underlying motivations as well as burnout/engagement and student learning. We analyzed longitudinal data of 80 faculty members’ achievement goals during the semester prior to shifting to online teaching, as well as their attitudes and burnout/engagement during the first semester with enforced online teaching. We additionally included 703 student ratings of these faculty members’ teaching quality. Results indicated that learning approach goals of faculty were positively associated with perceiving the shift to online teaching as a positive challenge and as useful for their own competence development. Conversely, performance (appearance) avoidance and work avoidance goals went along with perceiving this change as threatening, which was in turn positively related to burnout levels and negatively related to student ratings of teaching quality. Taken together, these findings point to the relevance of faculty goals and attitudes for successful online teaching and learning.

Measuring Faculty Effort: A Quantitative Approach That Aligns Personal and Institutional Goals in Pathology at Yale

US medical schools increasingly seek ways to reduce costs and improve productivity. One aspect of this effort has been the development of performance-based incentives for individual faculty. A myriad of such plans exist. Typically, they incentivize clinical revenue generation but vary widely in how teaching, investigation, and administrative contributions are recognized. In Pathology at Yale, we have developed a transparent metrically driven approach that recognizes all missions and allows faculty significant control over their career path. Although some metrics derive from traditional measures such as workload relative value units and one’s level of grant support, the key concept underpinning our approach is to define one’s contributions not in terms of the revenue generated, but rather on the effort devoted to each of our missions, benchmarked against national or local standards. Full-time faculty are paid a competitive rank-based salary and are expected to contribute at least 100% effort in support of the school’s missions: clinical, research, education, administration, and professional service. Metrics define the effort assigned to each activity. Faculty achieving greater than 100% effort receive bonus compensation in proportion to their excess effort. By codifying explicitly how such effort is recognized into a single metric (% effort), we achieve a process that better aligns the professional and personal goals of faculty with the aims of the school. To facilitate its implementation, we have developed a web-based software platform called SWAY (Standardized Workload Analysis at Yale) that enables faculty to monitor their progress and record their activities in real time.

Reaching a Large Urban Undergraduate Population through Microbial Ecology Course-Based Research Experiences.

Traditional postsecondary education is making progress on embracing the diversity of student backgrounds and experiences while preparing them for the demands of STEM careers. Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are effective tools to concurrently achieve many student and faculty goals: facilitating training of students, building career competencies, generating publishable research results and enabling research experiences where students apply their knowledge and interest. Georgia State University is not unique with a high student demand for research experiences and mentors that is greater than traditional research faculty labs can accommodate. Georgia State University is, however, unique in that it is a demographically diverse campus which serves minority and non-traditional students (i.e., second career and veterans) and is also rapidly growing. Therefore, to enhance the microbiology curriculum and facilitate authentic research experiences for the growing number of biology majors, a cluster of course-based research experiences in microbial ecology was developed. A former research lab space was converted to a collaborative teaching lab to serve the growth in course offerings, as well as to accommodate multiple microbial ecology research projects occurring in the same space. The courses offered appeal to students, build on the strengths of faculty experiences, and facilitate collaboration amongst students and with the greater Atlanta community. To ensure that our CUREs are accessible to the diverse students in our department, we addressed a variety of logistical and curricular challenges. Solutions to such challenges align with the goals of the university to offer research and signature experiences to ensure students are included and trained in STEM skills.

Survey of Undergraduate Students’ Goals and Achievement Strategies for Laboratory Coursework

Previous work has shown a misalignment between the goals of faculty and students for laboratory coursework. Although faculty often list learning techniques and developing critical thinking skills as goals for laboratory, students tend to focus on affective goals, such as finishing lab early and obtaining good grades. The goals of faculty have been thoroughly investigated through both qualitative and large-scale quantitative studies. However, studies on student goals for laboratory coursework have primarily been conducted using qualitative methods. In order to provide a more comprehensive idea of students’ goals in the laboratory, we have designed a brief, online survey. The survey was used to investigate students’ goals in the laboratory and build on existing literature by including survey questions that catalog how students plan on achieving their goals. In this study, we discuss results about students’ goals and achievement strategies at the beginning of the semester and after completing the laboratory portion of the course. Anonymous responses, via the online survey, were collected from undergraduate students enrolled in chemistry courses at two Midwestern universities. These results are intended to inform the discussion among faculty regarding how to change laboratory coursework and the instruction to better align faculty and student goals.

Teach students, Empower patients, Act collaboratively and Meet health goals: an early interprofessional clinical experience in transformed care.

PurposeTransformation of care teaching is often didactic and conceptual instead of practical and operational. Clinical environments, slow to transform, limit student exposure to key experiences that characterize transformed care. We describe the design and implementation of TEAM Clinic (Teach students, Empower patients, Act collaboratively, Meet health goals) – an early clinical learning experience to address this gap.MethodsThe TEAM Clinic curriculum was based on a review of existing curricula and best practice recommendations for the transformation of care. Three key elements were selected as the focus for a low-volume, high-service clinic: patient centeredness, interprofessional collaboration and team-based care. Learners and medically and socially complex patients were recruited for voluntary participation and completed anonymous surveys about the experience during and afterward.ResultsNine first-year medical students, two first-year social work students and one pharmacy resident were integrated into the interprofessional team. Students were assigned roles adapted to their level and skill set; deliberate interprofessional pairing was assigned to broaden perspectives on scope and role of team members. Upon completion of this two-semester experience, 11 of the 12 learners returned surveys; all rated the experience as positive (strongly agree or agree) on the Authentic Clinical Interprofessional Experience – Evaluation of Interprofessional Site tool. Patient surveys indicated satisfaction with multiple aspects of the visit.ConclusionTEAM Clinic provided a practical example of transformation of care teaching in a not-yet-transformed environment. Logistical barriers included space, schedule and staffing. Facilitators included alignment with the goals of core curricula and faculty. Limitations included that this description of these curricula and this pilot come early in our longitudinal development of TEAM Clinic, constraining our ability to measure behavioral changes around interprofessional education, teamwork or patient centeredness. Next steps would examine the trajectory to these outcomes in the preclinical student group.

What Are We Teaching Abroad? Faculty Goals for Short-Term Study Abroad Courses

Based on survey data from over 400 faculty members who taught short-term study abroad courses, the purpose of this study was to identify the types of goals that faculty members have in teaching short-term study abroad courses and the relationship between faculty background characteristics (i.e., race, gender, discipline, and prior experience) and their teaching goals. By further understanding the goals that these faculty members have for their study abroad programs, we are better able to assess how these programs may or may not be meeting overall internationalization goals and then to use this information to assist faculty members and higher education administrators in finding ways to further align study abroad goals with the broader goals of international education.

A Mixed-Methods Investigation of Clicker Implementation Styles in STEM.

Active learning with clickers is a common approach in high-enrollment, lecture-based courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In this study, we describe the procedures that faculty at one institution used when implementing clicker-based active learning, and how they situated these activities in their class sessions. Using a mixed-methods approach, we categorized faculty into four implementation styles based on quantitative observation data and conducted qualitative interviews to further understand why faculty used these styles. We found that faculty tended to use similar procedures when implementing a clicker activity, but differed on how they situated the clicker-based active learning into their courses. These variations were attributed to different faculty goals for using clicker-based active learning, with some using it to engage students at specific time points throughout their class sessions and others who selected it as the best way to teach a concept from several possible teaching techniques. Future research should continue to investigate and describe how active-learning strategies from literature may differ from what is being implemented.

Good WIL hunting: Building capacity for curriculum re-design

In response to government, industry, student and central University calls for initiatives to enhance graduate employability as a means for improved employment outcomes, a faculty within an Australian university formulated a five-year Work Integrated Learning (WIL) strategy (2015-2019). The Faculty goal was to re-new, develop, implement and evaluate scalable and sustainable intentional WIL-focused authentic curricula across every undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) course by the end of 2019. A ‘WIL Leadership Framework’ underpinned the whole-of-course team approach. This paper reports on the change-management processes and behaviours necessary to effect change from the bottom-up. Fostering academic staff capacity to build course-appropriate WIL curriculum has been slow and subtle and yet significant refinements to intentional and embedded WIL curriculum have occurred through a series of grounded research studies and curriculum renewal projects. WIL champions (the innovators), earmarked as change agents for enabling scalable curriculum transformation and renewal, were ‘hunted-out’ and nurtured. Their role was to influence teachers to enact context-specific and discipline-based WIL experiences into the curriculum. The main research findings to date reveal that STEM-specific WIL frameworks, concepts and assessment examples, presented as scholarly curriculum choices by WIL experts, and then actively and collegially discussed amongst the WIL champions and WIL early adopters, has been the most effective process to date for developing a WIL centred curriculum. The paper concludes by addressing the current operational goals predicated to have an impact on graduate employment for the Faculty.

Enabling full representation in science: the San Francisco BUILD project\u2019s agents of change affirm science skills, belonging and community

BackgroundThe underrepresentation of minority students in the sciences constrains innovation and productivity in the U.S. The SF BUILD project mission is to remove barriers to diversity by taking a “fix the institution” approach rather than a “fix the student” one. SF BUILD is transforming education, research, training, and mentoring at San Francisco State University, a premiere public university that primarily serves undergraduates and ethnic minority students. It boasts a large number of faculty members from underrepresented groups (URGs), including many of the project leaders. These leaders collaborate with faculty at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), a world-class medical research institution, to implement SF BUILD.Key highlightsTogether, the campus partners are committed to creating intellectually safe and affirming environments grounded in the Signaling Affirmation for Equity (SAFE) model, which is based on robust psychosocial evidence on stereotype threat and its consequences. The SAFE model dictates a multilevel approach to increasing intent to pursue a biomedical career, persistence in STEM fields, and productivity (e.g. publications, presentations, and grants) by implementing transformative activities at the institutional, faculty, and student levels. These activities (1) increase knowledge of the stereotype threat phenomenon; (2) affirm communal and altruistic goals of students and faculty to “give back” to their communities in classrooms and research activities; and (3) establish communities of students, faculty and administrators as “agents of change.” Agents of change are persons committed to establishing and maintaining SAFE environments. In this way, SF BUILD advances the national capacity to address biomedical questions relevant to communities of color by enabling full representation in science.ImplicationsThis chapter describes the theoretical and historical context that drive the activities, research and evaluation of the SF BUILD project, and highlights attributes that other institutions can use for institutional change. While this paper is grounded in psychosocial theory, it also provides practical solutions for broadening participation.

A Multi-Level Examination of the Relationship Between Student-Centered Faculty Teaching Culture and Spiritual Development in College

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which faculty culture pertaining to student-centered pedagogy, student–faculty interactions, and faculty goals of enhancing spirituality is associated with spirituality in college students. While individual interactions with faculty have been the focus of spirituality research in recent years, few have examined how exposure to institutional culture fostered by the faculty plays a role in students’ spiritual growth and development. We utilize hierarchical linear modeling to examine the role of faculty culture in spiritual development to fill this gap.

Core competencies for UK occupational health nurses: a Delphi study.

BackgroundOccupational health nurses (OHNs) play a pivotal role in the delivery of occupational health (OH) services. Specific competency guidance has been developed in a number of countries, including the UK. While it is acknowledged that UK OHN practice has evolved in recent years, there has been no formal research to capture these developments to ensure that training and curricula remain up-to-date and reflect current practice.AimsTo identify current priorities among UK OHNs of the competencies required for OH practice.MethodsA modified Delphi study undertaken among representative OHN networks in the UK. This formed part of a larger study including UK and international occupational physicians. The study was conducted in two rounds using a questionnaire based on available guidance on training competencies for OH practice, the published literature, expert panel reviews and conference discussions.ResultsConsensus among OHNs was high with 7 out of the 12 domains scoring 100% in rating. ‘Good clinical care’ was the principal domain ranked most important, followed by ‘general principles of assessment & management of occupational hazards to health’. ‘Research methods’ and ‘teaching & educational supervision’ were considered least important.ConclusionsThis study has established UK OHNs’ current priorities on the competencies required for OH practice. The timing of this paper is opportune with the formal launch of the Faculty of Occupational Health Nursing planned in 2018 and should inform the development of competency requirements as part of the Faculty’s goals for standard setting in OHN education and training.