Academic Higher Education Research Articles

Faculty perceptions of the scholarship and utility of writing college-level textbooks

The literature and most anecdotal evidence suggest that higher education faculty members hold writing college-level textbooks in relatively low esteem as a scholarly activity. A structured inquiry conducted among tenured faculty and department chairs which separated notions of scholarship from expectation of utility disclosed a surprisingly high regard for the scholarship required in writing textbooks. However, the expectation of utility or reward is much lower, suggesting institutional and financial pressures that act as major disincentives to textbook authorship. Both the regard for scholarship and the expectation of reward were also shown to display disciplinary variations.

Staff Usage of Information Technology in a Faculty of Higher Education: a Survey and Case Study

Although information technology (IT) is playing an increasing role in education, little research has been done on its use by academics in higher education. A questionnaire was sent to 125 members of a university faculty of education and community studies concerning their use of IT. The number of replies received totalled 71, 58 of them from IT users. Respondents made use of IT for a variety of teaching, research and administrative purposes. Many had purchased machines of their own and used a wide range of proprietary software packages, though very few did any original programming. Attitudes to IT were generally utilitarian and pragmatic.

Power and Gender Issues in Academic Administration: A Study of Directors of BSW Programs

Many studies have found that the tenure, rank, and salaries of female faculty members in higher education are not equal to those of men. However, few studies have considered the perceptions of power held by those in leadership positions in academia. This article reports on a study of the differences in equity and the perceptions of power to carry out administrative functions of directors of BSW programs. It discusses the complexity of the gender-power relationship in light of the impact of sex-role socialization and structural barriers to advancement in academic organizations. Men's and women's perceptions of the balance of power in administrative positions are important if women are to understand and overcome their powerlessness.

Developing and implementing a model for evaluating teaching effectiveness.

Evaluation of faculty members in higher education has become an important issue in the past two decades. Institutions are facing difficult decisions about retaining and promoting faculty members during a period of economic constraints. Efforts to document teaching effectiveness in nursing are essential if nursing is to gamer its share of scarce education resources. This article describes the development and implementation of a model for evaluating teaching effectiveness.

Books Perceived to be Basic Reading for Students of Higher Education

Results are reported from the replication of a 1971 survey of higher education faculty members’ perception of the most important books in their areas of specialization as well as for higher education students, more generally. The authors conclude that a) while there is consensus on a few books, choices are diverse and specialization-specific: b) Jossey-Bass is the major publisher: and c) the books tend to have a restricted national (U.S.A.) and temporal (published within the past two decades) focus.

DEVELOPMENT AND UTILIZATION OF A FACULTY TIME ANALYSIS SYSTEM ‐AN AID TO ACCOUNTABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

ABSTRACT This article describes the development and utility of a time analysis system for higher education faculty members interested in self‐evaluation. Although many higher education institutions employ various student, peer, and administrative evaluations, an analysis of the types of services performed by faculty staff and the amounts of time allotted to these services can provide very useful information to a faculty person interested in self‐evaluation. A model is described herein and an example is provided.

Teaching Performance in Home Economics

The study compared the perceptions of selected faculty members in higher education with those of public school administrators as to the desired performance of homemaking teachers in rural and urban areas. The effort included the construction, the administration, the analysis, and the interpretation of an inventory of statements concerning teacher performance.Teaching performance statements were compiled and an initial list of 293 submitted to a panel of judges for evaluation of statement validity, item discrimination, and relevance of the arrangement of the statements into the following categories: personal qualities, teaching abil ity, classroom management, attitude toward supervision, and professional ethics and interest. Based on the judgments of the panel members, a revised list of 175 statements was submitted to teachers in federally reimbursed homemaking departments in the New Mexico public schools and each statement was rated on a nine‐point continuum from most generalist to most specialist orientation. Data from the ratings were utilized to select seven statements from each of the five categories. Based on scale and Q values and Rulon's estimate of reliability, seven performance statements were incorporated in each of the five categories. The completed in ventory was organized in paired‐comparison format: each statement within each category was compared with every other statement in the same category, thus providing a forced‐choice rating of the statements. The final inventory was submitted to home economics faculty members in institutions of the National Association of State Universities and Land‐Grant Col leges and to rural and urban public school administrators from randomly selected schools in each of the fifty states.From the analyses of the data collected, the results of the investigation indicated that all groups expect some degree of generalist performance, rather than specialist, by homemaking teachers. The study also disclosed significant agreement, both within each group and between the groups, as to what constitutes effective teaching performance.

Dimensions of faculty members' sensitivity to job satisfaction items

Researchers have suggested that questionnaire item sensitivity may be a possible source of response bias in investigations using mail surveys. In conducting job satisfaction studies of faculty members in higher education, investigators have assumed that job satisfaction items are not highly sensitive to faculty members and do not vary in their degree of sensitivity. The purpose of the present research was to assess the degree of sensitivity of various job satisfaction items to faculty members and to identify dimensions of faculty members' sensitivity to these items. Results from a questionnaire returned from 354 faculty members at a large university showed that their sensitivity to job satisfaction items centered primarily in three areas: (1) concern with extrinsic job factors, (2) concern with department head actions, and (3) concern with promotion and salary. On the whole, item sensitivity appeared to be rather low. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.