Workload Issues and Measures of Faculty Productivity
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However, the 1990s saw a surge of interest in this version of faculty produc- tivity as part of an increasing state emphasis on performance accountability in public higher education. 3 Legislators were particularly concerned with number of contact hours and number of students taught, which could be conceived of as fac- ulty workload. 4 According to Hines and Higham, 23 states in the mid-1990s had mandated faculty workload studies. 5 Also, by 1994, at least 14 states had legisla- tive mandates to standardize how faculty productivity was measured in the state. 6 This interest in faculty workload and productivity continues today as some legis- lators tout having faculty teach more courses as a partial solution to raising college A ccording to Duderstadt, “a new p-word has replaced parking as the dominant faculty concern on campus- es these days: productivity. From state capitals to Washington, from corporate executive suites to newspaper editorial offices, there is a strong belief that if only faculty would work harder, by spending more hours in the classroom, the quality of a college education would rise while its costs would decline.” 1 Duderstadt’s observation illustrates a common perception of fac- ulty productivity: number of hours in the classroom. Conceived in this way, faculty productivity at the university level has been of interest throughout much of the 20th century. 2 Workload Issues and Measures of Faculty Productivity by Barbara K. Townsend and Vicki J. Rosser Barbara K. Townsend is professor of higher education in the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia and director of the Center for Community College Research. Her current research interests include access to and attainment of the baccalaureate, including through transfer and the community college baccalaureate. Vicki J. Rosser is associate professor of higher education in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and co-director of the University Council for Educational Administration Center for Academic Leadership. Her research interests include faculty members and midlevel administrative worklife issues, and leadership and academic governance. THOUGHT & ACTION FALL 2007 7
Transcript of Workload Issues and Measures of Faculty Productivity
Layout 1However, the 1990s saw a surge of interest in this version
of faculty produc- tivity as part of an increasing state emphasis
on performance accountability in public higher education.3
Legislators were particularly concerned with number of contact
hours and number of students taught, which could be conceived of as
fac- ulty workload.4 According to Hines and Higham, 23 states in
the mid-1990s had mandated faculty workload studies.5 Also, by
1994, at least 14 states had legisla- tive mandates to standardize
how faculty productivity was measured in the state.6
This interest in faculty workload and productivity continues today as some legis- lators tout having faculty teach more courses as a partial solution to raising college
According to Duderstadt, “a new p-word has replaced parking as the dominant faculty concern on campus- es these days: productivity. From state capitals to
Washington, from corporate executive suites to newspaper editorial offices, there is a strong belief that if only faculty would work harder, by spending more hours in the classroom, the quality of a college education would rise while its costs would decline.”1 Duderstadt’s observation illustrates a common perception of fac- ulty productivity: number of hours in the classroom. Conceived in this way, faculty productivity at the university level has been of interest throughout much of the 20th century.2
Workload Issues and Measures of Faculty
Productivity by Barbara K. Townsend and Vicki J. Rosser
Barbara K. Townsend is professor of higher education in the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia and director of the Center for Community College Research. Her current research interests include access to and attainment of the baccalaureate, including through transfer and the community college baccalaureate.
Vicki J. Rosser is associate professor of higher education in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and co-director of the University Council for Educational Administration Center for Academic Leadership. Her research interests include faculty members and midlevel administrative worklife issues, and leadership and academic governance.
THOUGHT & ACTIONFALL 2007 7
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costs. This legislative interest has resulted in institutional efforts to measure instruc-
tional productivity so as to meet accountability requirements, at least in public institutions. During the 1990s, three major higher education associations (National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the American Association of Community Colleges) formed the Joint Commission on Accountability Reporting ( JCAR). The group was designed to develop a coordi- nated response to demands for information on productivity and accountability.7
JCAR developed measures of faculty activity but noted the limitations of its efforts: Namely, the measures provided descriptive information but could not serve institutions as “a management tool.”8 To meet the need for more comprehensive information, JCAR acknowledged the usefulness of what is generally called the Delaware Study or more formally, the National Study of Instructional Costs and Productivity.
Within institutions, faculty productivity is also an issue for faculty, particular- ly those on the tenure-track and those at institutions where faculty are expected to conduct research. There is currently “a higher bar to winning tenure” than in the 1970s and earlier.9 The higher bar is motivated by internal or institutional demands as well as by external or legislative ones. The elimination of age-based mandatory retirement, due to federal law in the 1980s, has contributed to institu- tional concerns about being “overtenured,” so standards for awarding tenure have been raised.10 Also, many faculty members, particularly at research universities, are currently pressured not only to publish more but also to generate grant funding to help pay their salary. While the general public and state legislators may not view grant funding and scholarship as important because they do not increase the num- ber of students and courses taught, these performance expectations are ones some faculty must meet to be successful or considered productive within their institu- tion. This tension between institutional views of faculty productivity and those of the general public and legislators illustrates the importance of clarifying what is meant by faculty productivity and determining how to measure it.11
There is a lack of agreement about what faculty productivity means. Defining it as number of classes or courses taught, number of credit hours generated,
and number of students taught is really defining teaching workload, which some
The elimination of age-based mandatory retirement, due to federal law in the 1980s, has contributed to institutional concerns about being ‘overtenured.’
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equate with faculty productivity, especially in the public two-year college or com- munity college sector.12 Teaching workload is also considered by some to be instructional productivity as opposed to noninstructional productivity.13 Scholars seeking to examine the productivity of four-year college and university faculty typ- ically focus on noninstructional productivity and more specifically on research pro- ductivity. When examined, research or scholarly productivity is typically measured by counting the number and type of publications over a specific time period.14 The logic for this approach is that publication is usually “an indicator” of research.15
Similar logic would seem to underlie other measures of research productivity,
which include “peer recognition, citation indices/score, curriculum vitae, [and] weighted indices/summaries,”16 grant awards,17 and “fewer coauthors and higher authorship position”18 in publications.
Whether examining what is labeled as research or teaching productivity, those who count time spent in work activities and products generated through these activities, (e. g., credit hours generated, articles published) are not truly measuring productivity—at least according to some scholars. Meyer argues that workload and productivity are not the same. Rather, “workload traditionally captures how time is spent, while productivity is a measure of what is produced with that time.”19
Typically, faculty workload is calculated by three measures: (1) the total number of hours each week that faculty work to meet their job responsibilities, (2) the week- ly number of hours spent in instructional activities, and (3) the weekly number of hours spent on scholarly activities.20
When productivity is defined as what is produced during the time faculty spend on their work, the concept includes such things as credit hours generated or
articles published.21 But Middaugh, one of the key figures in the development of the Delaware Study, is adamant that emphasizing outcomes like scholarly publications and presentations and emphasizing number of hours worked, particularly in the classroom, reflect misguided views of faculty productivity.22 He maintains that the institutional or academic emphasis on number of published articles in a given time period has little meaning for the general public and legislators, who do not under- stand the nature of peer review and the meaning to academicians of a faculty mem- ber’s number of publications. To him, faculty productivity is more appropriately defined in terms of outcomes such as pass rates in certification exams and job place- ment of graduates. However, he concedes that understanding what faculty do, that
Faculty productivity is more appropriately defined in terms of outcomes such as pass rates in certification
exams and job placement of graduates.
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is, how they spend their time, is “the first step in defining faculty productivity.”23
Following Middaugh’s24 logic that the first step in examining faculty produc- tivity is to understand how faculty members spend their time, we sought to exam- ine on a national level the extent (number of hours worked per week) and the nature (instructional and research activities undertaken during these hours) of full- time faculty’s workload over an extended time period.
The specific research questions we asked are as follows: 1. What was the extent and nature of the faculty workload in 1993 and
2004? 2. Did faculty workload change in extent and/or nature from 1993 to 2004? 3. Were there differences in faculty workload by institutional type in 1993
and 2004? We anticipated that faculty workload would have increased between 1993 and
2004, perhaps in response to increased calls for greater productivity. We also antic- ipated institutional differences in both the number of hours worked and the out- put generated from instructional and research activities because of differences in institutional mission. Finally, we anticipated that research activities were more likely to have increased than instructional activities because research requirements for tenure and promotion have escalated.
As a result of our study, described below, we learned that faculty workload did indeed increase in the aggregate between 1993 and 2004. But there were
institutional differences in terms of the average work week and in the extent and nature of instructional activities and scholarly output. Some types of scholarly out- put increased in some institutional types but decreased in others. Contrary to our expectation, it appears that research output in certain forms declined in two insti-
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tutional types while instructional workload increased. Since 1988 the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and the
National Science Foundation (NSF) have sponsored every five years a national survey to measure various aspects of higher education faculty members’ profes- sional and institutional worklife. This survey is called the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF). In this study we use the 1993 and 2004 NSOPF restricted datasets. Both NSOPF databases (1993 and 2004) are nationally repre- sentative samples of faculty members in higher education institutions.
Because faculty roles are largely shaped by their employing institution’s dom-
inant mission, we focused on faculty at five types of public higher education insti- tutions: two-year colleges, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive colleges and univer- sities, doctoral-granting universities (labeled in NSOPF as “public other Ph.D.”), and research universities. By doing so, we hoped to capture possible differences in faculty’s teaching and research activities. Additionally, we restricted the study to public institutions because they are more subject to scrutiny by the general public and control by state legislators than are private institutions. Finally, we looked only at full-time instructional faculty.
For the purpose of this individual-level study, 18,563 full-time faculty members from public institutions were selected as a subset from two national samples:
11,421 faculty members from the 1993 NSOPF data set, and 7,142 from the 2004 NSOPF data set (See Table 1 in Appendix for specifics of the two subsets).25
To measure the extent of faculty workload, we used the NSOPF variable “average total hours worked per week” (includes paid and unpaid activities at insti- tution, and paid and unpaid activities not at institution). To measure the nature of the activities in their workload, we classified the activities into two categories: teaching or instructional workload and research or scholarly workload. We meas- ured instructional workload by the number of courses or classes taught (including both credit and non-credit), total classroom credit hours, and total number of stu- dents taught in credit classes. We measured scholarly workload by output within the last two years of articles in refereed journals; articles in nonrefereed journals; presentations; books, textbooks, and reports; and patents and computer software.
Descriptive statistics provide us an appropriate way to examine faculty mem- bers’ workload within each surveyed year and by institutional type. We also ran t- tests in the aggregate as well as within each institutional type to examine the mean differences between the 1993 and 2004 workload measures. While these databas-
We restricted the study to public institutions because they are more subject to scrutiny by the general public and
control by state legislators than are private institutions.
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es are nationally representative, we present these statistical differences with a note of caution; the respondents from the two subsets are different individuals from 1993 to 2004.26 These two subset years represent distinct snapshots in time rather than showing longitudinal changes that are measured over time.
Limitations of the study include the nature of the data: self-reports by faculty, some of whom may erroneously report the number of classes taught, number of stu- dents taught, number of publications, and so forth. Another major limitation was changes in the questions asked in the two iterations of the NSOPF survey. Each time the survey appears, some questions on the previous survey are omitted and some new
ones are added. Thus the questions researchers can ask, when using two or more sets of NSOPF data, are limited by the questions that are common across the sets. As a result we could not look at the weekly number of student contact hours, grants or fund- ed research, or service activities (e.g., institutional committee chaired and/or served on) because, unlike the 1993 survey, the 2004 survey did not ask about these activities.
As we anticipated, faculty workload, defined simply as the reported weekly num- ber of hours worked by faculty, significantly increased in the aggregate between
1993 and 2004: 50.61 hours in 1993 as compared to 52.12 in 2004 (p=.000). However, Table 2 illustrates the difference in work week by institutional type.
When examining the nature of the workload in terms of instructional activi- ties, one finds a significant increase between 1993 and 2004 in the total number of classes taught, both in the aggregate and in each institutional type (see Table 3). However, institutional-level examination of instructional and scholarly outputs reveals that faculty at certain institutional types had greater output (what some might label as productivity) in instructional activities while others had greater out- put in scholarly or research activities (see Tables 4 through 10). For example, dur- ing both years (1993 and 2004) two-year college faculty led in instructional work- load as measured by number of classes taught, credit hours generated, and total number of students taught in credit courses.
From 1993 to 2004 scholarly or research output increased significantly in the aggregate for all faculty and also for faculty in three institutional types for two cat- egories: number of articles in refereed journals and in nonrefereed journals (see Tables 6 and 7). As expected, there were significant differences by institutional type, with two-year faculty having the least number of articles in refereed and non- refereed journals. Scholarly output in the form of presentations increased both in
Faculty workload, defined simply as the reported weekly number of hours worked by faculty, significantly increased in the aggregate between 1993 and 2004.
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the aggregate and for faculty at each type of institution with one exception: other Ph.D. institutions (see Table 8). Output in terms of books, textbooks, and reports, and number of patents and software in the last two years declined, both in the aggregate and for all institutional types (see Tables 9 and 10).
In sum, the extent (reported number of hours worked weekly) of faculty work- load increased from 1993 to 2004, both in the aggregate and for faculty at public two-year schools and at public comprehensive colleges and universities. However, the workweek declined in 2004 for faculty at liberal arts colleges and other Ph.D. and research universities. The nature of the workload changed somewhat between
1993 and 2004, with faculty in all institutional types reporting a greater number of classes taught. The total number of classroom credit hours declined in the aggregate in 2004, and for faculty in comprehensive institutions. Similarly, the number of total students taught in credit classes declined (non-significant, p=.132) in the aggregate in 2004, although it increased in liberal arts colleges, other Ph.D. institutions, and research universities. The scholarly aspects of faculty workload also appeared to change somewhat from 1993 to 2004. Output in the form of refereed articles and nonrefereed articles was significantly up in the aggregate, as were the number of pre- sentations. There were some variations by institutional type with faculty at other Ph.D. institutions and at research universities showing a decline in the number of juried articles and faculty in comprehensive colleges and universities showing a very slight decline in the number of presentations. However, the number of books, text- books, and reports, as well as the number of patents and software declined in the aggregate (p=.000) and in all institutional types.
The significance of the findings varies by how they are presented–in the aggre- gate for all faculty members or disaggregated by faculty in specific institu-
tional types. Policy makers and the general public seeing the increase from 1993 to 2004 in the self-reported number of hours worked may perceive that faculty are working more hours and thus are more productive. Those outside the academy may also assume that working more hours means faculty are teaching more stu- dents and/or more classes. But a closer look at the data indicates a decline from 1993 to 2004 in the number of total classroom credit hours taught and in the total number of students taught in credit classes, important measures of faculty produc- tivity for a general audience.
An audience of faculty and higher education administrators would note the
The nature of the workload changed between 1993 and 2004, with faculty in all institutional types
reporting a greater number of classes taught.
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mixed findings on scholarly output during the time of the study, both in the aggre- gate and by institutional type. In the aggregate faculty appear to have increased their productivity, if defined as generating more output of refereed articles, non- refereed articles, and presentations from 1993 to 2004. But this finding needs to be interpreted with caution. While scholarly output in the form of articles has increased, this may not be evidence of more faculty scholarly effort, but rather the result of “the increasing number and diversity of publication outlets (particularly in an age of online publishing).”27 Alternatively, this increase, as well as the increas- ing number of presentations, may reflect the trend toward multiple-authored
rather than single-authored work in certain disciplines.28 Of particular interest to administrators in other Ph.D. and research universities would be the decline in the number of refereed articles within the last two years of the 2004 study. Given the increasing emphasis on peer-reviewed articles to gain tenure and promotion, including to the rank of full professor, it is unclear why there would be this decline at these two institutional types, the ones most likely to require peer-reviewed arti- cles for promotion and tenure.
Both audiences—policy makers and the general public as well as higher educa- tion faculty and administrators—would see from this study the differences in
faculty workload (both extent and nature) by institutional type. Those who under- stand differences in institutional missions with consequent differences in expecta- tions for faculty would understand the differences found in the NSOPF studies. The community college emphasizes teaching, so its faculty members teach more classes than do faculty at the four-year institutions in the study. Liberal arts col- leges and comprehensive colleges and universities have more of a teaching mission than do institutions classified as other Ph.D. and research institutions, so faculty in liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions teach more classes than do faculty at other Ph.D. or research institutions. Since four-year college and univer- sity faculty members are typically expected to generate some scholarly output, they do so on the average more than do community college faculty, who are not typi- cally expected to conduct research.29 “In light of the fact that faculty activities dif- fer greatly across institutional types,” it would be imprudent to compare all insti- tutions, regardless of type, to a single standard such as a minimum number of con- tact hours with students.30
While the findings of this study reinforce the dichotomy between the work-
It would be imprudent to compare all institutions, regardless of type, to a single standard such as a minimum number of contact hours with students.
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week and output of two-year college faculty when compared to university faculty, this finding is not new. What is more striking is the differences in the instruction- al workload of faculty in liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions ver- sus faculty in other Ph.D. and research universities. In this study, faculty at liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions taught more classes and classroom credit hours than did faculty at the other two types of four-year institutions (other Ph.D. and research universities). At the same time the scholarly output in terms of refereed and non-refereed journal articles was much higher for faculty at com- prehensive institutions than for faculty at two-year colleges. These institutional
differences in faculty workload need to be understood by those seeking faculty careers and by administrators evaluating faculty in these institutions.
All audiences need to be cautious in assuming that faculty workload, defined here as number of hours worked and instructional and scholarly outputs gen-
erated during the hours worked, equates with faculty productivity. For example, the number of students taught in credit courses does not automatically equate to the number of students who learned the material in these courses. Similarly, the num- ber of articles produced and presentations made within the last two years of an NSOPF survey indicate how faculty members are spending part of their time, but not whether the articles and presentations are substantive contributions to the expansion of knowledge in a discipline or field. Information about faculty workload for all faculty members or for faculty members in different types of institutions sim- ply provides a starting point for questions about faculty productivity, not a definitive answer.31
Finally, for researchers, this study illustrates the difficulty in conducting sec- ondary analysis of existing national data sets when two or more iterations of the survey provide the data for the study. Working with NSOPF data across different iterations of the survey reveals the many substantive changes in the survey vari- ables. If the same questions are not used in each survey, it becomes very difficult to find a set of questions that can be examined across the studies. Yet, studies com- paring responses in different time periods are vital for a broad look at what is hap- pening, in this case with faculty workload over time.
The number of students taught in credit courses does not automatically equate to the number of students
who learned the material in these courses.
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Table 1. Faculty Respondents by Institutional Type
Table 2. Average Faculty Work Week in Public Institutions, 1993 and 2004 (Means and Standard Deviations)
Table 3. Total Number of Classes Taught (Credit and Non-Credit) in Public Institutions, 1993 and 2004
Table 4. Total Classroom Credit Hours in Classes in Public Institutions, 1993 and 2004
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 12.70 (5.87) 12.70 (5.68) Liberal arts 10.04 (2.92) 10.51 (3.77) Comprehensive 10.03 (4.30) 09.95 (3.54) Other Ph.D. 07.60 (3.66) 08.23 (3.56) Research 06.44 (3.59) 06.96 (3.50) Total 10.27 (5.34) 09.95 (4.95)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 4.06 (2.37) 4.94 (2.81) Liberal arts 3.02 (1.44) 3.72 (1.66) Comprehensive 3.12 (1.80) 3.48 (1.33) Other Ph.D. 2.33 (1.75) 2.98 (1.64) Research 1.71 (1.55) 2.48 (1.70) Total 3.14 (2.17) 3.67 (2.30)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 46.66 (16.01) 49.17 (13.52) Liberal arts 53.16 (16.06) 51.63 (13.41) Comprehensive 51.34 (16.92) 53.15 (13.13) Other Ph.D. 54.34 (15.14) 53.17 (12.77) Research 55.20 (15.07) 54.71 (12.70) Total 50.61 (16.40) 52.13 (13.31)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 4,320 (37.8%) 2,445 (34.2%) Liberal arts 61 (0.5%) 245 (3.4%) Comprehensive 3,659 (32.0%) 1,784 (25.0%) Other Ph.D. 1,546 (13.5%) 881 (12.3%) Research 1,835 (16.1%) 1,787 (25.0%) Total 11,421 7,142
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Table 5. Total Students Taught in Credit Classes in Public Institutions, 1993 and 2004
Table 6. Number of Articles in Refereed Journal in Last Two Years
Table 7. Number of Articles in Nonrefereed Journals in Last Two Years
Table 8. Number of Presentations in Last Two Years
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 1.26 (4.47) 1.73 (3.71) Liberal arts 2.02 (3.85) 2.58 (3.31) Comprehensive 2.93 (5.91) 3.57 (4.59) Other Ph.D. 4.27 (7.51) 4.21 (5.76) Research 4.73 (7.77) 5.03 (6.44) Total 2.76 (6.16) 3.35 (5.13)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 0.12 (0.92) 0.41 (1.59) Liberal arts 0.26 (1.03) 0.94 (2.95) Comprehensive 0.50 (1.66) 0.97 (2.39) Other Ph.D. 0.81 (2.28) 1.17 (2.73) Research 0.97 (2.48) 1.35 (3.07) Total 0.47 (1.73) 0.89 (2.45)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 0.15 (0.98) 0.25 (1.10) Liberal arts 0.79 (1.31) 0.96 (1.81) Comprehensive 0.91 (2.01) 1.41 (2.41) Other Ph.D. 2.20 (3.47) 1.98 (3.09) Research 3.18 (4.56) 2.73 (4.08) Total 1.16 (2.80) 1.40 (2.87)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 98.65 (56.91) 92.69 (54.65) Liberal arts 67.88 (29.80) 83.41 (50.30) Comprehensive 98.65 (56.96) 91.80 (58.06) Other Ph.D. 79.57 (66.35) 88.67 (70.75) Research 78.25 (84.02) 86.01 (88.62) Total 91.03 (63.12) 89.98 (67.38)
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E N D N O T E S 1 James J. Duderstadt, A University for the 21st Century, 2000, 154. 2 David E. Gullatt and Sue W. Weaver, Faculty Productivity: A National Institutional Perspective,
1995. 3 Joseph C. Burke, Reinventing Accountability: From Bureaucratic Rules to Performance Results,
2000; Michael K. McLendon, James C. Hearn, and Russ Deaton, Called to Account: Analyzing the Origins and Spread of State Performance-Accountability Policies for Higher Education, 2006; Katrina A. Meyer, Faculty Workload Studies: Perspectives, Needs, and Future Directions, 1998; Jennifer B. Presley and Edward Engelbride, Accounting for Faculty Productivity in the Research University, 1998.
4 James S. Fairweather and Robert A. Rhoads, Teaching and the Faculty Role: Enhancing the Commitment to Instruction in American Colleges and Universities, 1995; Katrina A. Meyer, op cit.
5 Edward R. Hines and J. Russell III Higham, Faculty Workload and State Policy, November 1996. 6 David E. Gullatt and Sue W. Weaver, op cit. 7 Michael F. Middaugh, Understanding Faculty Productivity: Standards and Benchmarks for Colleges
and Universities, 2001, 30. 8 Ibid., 51. 9 Hugh Hawkins, The Making of the Liberal Arts College Identity, 2000, 30. 10 Ibid., 21. 11 Katrina A. Meyer, op cit. 12 James Palmer, Enhancing Faculty Productivity: A State Perspective, September 1998. 13 Jennifer B. Presley and Edward Engelbride, op cit. 14 Elizabeth G. Creamer, Assessing Faculty Publication Productivity: Issues of Equity, 1998; Katrina
A. Meyer, op cit.; Linda J. Sax, Linda S. Hagedorn, Marisol Arrendondo, and Frank A. DiCrisi,
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Table 9. Number of Books, Textbooks, and Reports in Last Two Years
Table 10. Number of Patents and Software in Last Two Years
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 0.08 (0.66) 0.03 (0.36) Liberal arts 0.13 (0.59) 0.03 (0.25) Comprehensive 0.11 (0.66) 0.04 (0.28) Other Ph.D. 0.15 (0.76) 0.06 (0.37) Research 0.17 (0.80) 0.10 (0.55) Total 0.12 (0.73) 0.05 (0.40)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 0.44 (2.61) 0.24 (1.04) Liberal arts 0.72 (2.11) 0.31 (0.86) Comprehensive 0.92 (3.47) 0.41 (1.09) Other Ph.D 1.47 (4.95) 0.56 (1.44) Research 1.57 (4.83) 0.57 (1.49) Total 0.91 (3.70) 0.41 (1.27)
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Faculty Research Productivity: Exploring the Role of Gender and Family-Related Factors, 2002; Daniel Teodorescu, Correlates of Faculty Publication Productivity: A Cross-National Analysis, 2000.
15 Mary F. Fox, Research, Teaching, and Publication Productivity: Mutuality Versus Competition, 1992, 296.
16 Steven F. Doellefeld, Faculty Productivity: A Conceptual Analysis and Research Synthesis, 1996. 17 Maureen M. Black and Wayne E. Holden, The Impact of Gender on Productivity and Satisfaction
Among Medical School Psychologists, 1998. 18 Gabrielle A. Roberts, Kim S. Davis, Dinorah Zanger, Aimee Gerrard-Morris, and Daniel H.
Robinson, Top Contributors to the School Psychology Literature: 1996-2005 (2006): 737. 19 Katrina A. Meyer, op cit., 45-46. 20 Katrina A. Meyer, op cit. 21 Ibid. 22 Michael F. Middaugh, op cit. 23 Ibid., 10. 24 Ibid. 25 We used the 1994 Carnegie classification variable for both datasets because we could reduce
these data more specifically from privates and medical institutions. 26 Weighting is an important aspect of this study. First, to correct for oversampling, the relative
weight was developed by dividing raw weights by their means. Second, to correct for clustering effects, the relative weights were further adjusted by the design effect (DEFF). For more clari- fication and explanation of weighting approach used in this study, see Scott L. Thomas and Ronald H. Heck, Analysis of Large-Scale Secondary Data in Higher Education Research: Potential Perils Associated with Complex Sampling Designs, 2001.
27 Linda J. Sax, Linda S. Hagedorn, Marisol Arrendondo and Frank A. DiCrisi, op cit., 424. 28 Gabrielle A. Roberts, Kim S. Davis, Dinorah Zanger, Aimee Gerrard-Morris, and Daniel H.
Robinson, op cit. 29 Ibid. 30 MGT of America, Inc., Faculty Productivity Issues in State Universities, 2002; See also Illinois
Board of Higher Education, Faculty Advisory Council's Response to the Board’s Request for Input Regarding Faculty Productivity Issues, 2003.
31 Michael F. Middaugh, op cit.
W O R K S C I T E D Black, Maureen M. and Holden, Wayne E. “The Impact of Gender on Productivity and Satisfaction
among Medical School Psychologists.” Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 5 (1998): 117-131.
Burke, Joseph C. “Reinventing Accountability: From Bureaucratic Rules to Performance Results.” In Joseph C. Burke and Associates, Achieving Accountability in Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
Creamer, Elizabeth G. Assessing Faculty Publication Productivity: Issues of Equity. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, 26(2). Washington, DC: Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University, 1998.
Doellefeld, Steven F. Faculty Productivity: A Conceptual Analysis and Research Synthesis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation: University at Albany, State University of New York, 1996.
Duderstadt, James J. A University for the 21st Century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
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Fairweather, James S. and Rhoads, Robert A. “Teaching and the Faculty Role: Enhancing the Commitment to Instruction in American Colleges and Universities.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 17 (1995): 179-194.
Fox, Mary F. “Research, Teaching, and Publication Productivity: Mutuality versus Competition.” Sociology of Education 65 (1992): 293-305.
Gullatt, David E. and Weaver, Sue W. Faculty Productivity: A National Institutional Perspective. Paper presented at Thirteenth Annual Conference of Academic Chairpersons, Orlando, FL, 1995.
Hawkins, Hugh. “The Making of the Liberal Arts College Identity.” In S. Loblik and S. R. Graubard (Eds.), Distinctively American: The Residential Liberal Arts Colleges (pp. 1-25). New Brunswick, CT: Transaction Publishers, 2000.
Hines, Edward R. and Higham, J. Russell III. Faculty Workload and State Policy. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Memphis, TN, November 1996.
Illinois Board of Higher Education. “Faculty Advisory Council's Response to the Board’s Request for Input Regarding Faculty Productivity Issues,” 2003, www.academicsenate.ilstu.edu/ Docu…./FacultyProductivityReport-IBHE-FAC12.-08-03.htm> (1 June 2006).
McLendon, Michael K., Hearn, James C. and Deaton, Russ. “Called to Account: Analyzing the Origins and Spread of State Performance-Accountability Policies for Higher Education.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 28 (2006): 1-24.
Meyer, Katrina A. Faculty Workload Studies: Perspectives, Needs, and Future Directions. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, 26(1). Washington, DC: Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington University, 1998.
MGT of America, Inc. Faculty Productivity Issues in State Universities. Tallahassee, FL: Author, 2002.
Middaugh, Michael F. Understanding Faculty Productivity: Standards and Benchmarks for Colleges and Universities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
Palmer, James. Enhancing Faculty Productivity: A State Perspective. Education Commission of the States, September 1998.
Presley, Jennifer B. and Engelbride, Edward. “Accounting for Faculty Productivity in the Research University.” The Review of Higher Education 22 (1998): 17-37.
Roberts, Gabrielle A., Davis, Kim S., Zanger, Dinorah, Gerrard-Morris, Aimee, and Robinson, Daniel H. “Top Contributors to the School Psychology Literature: 1996-2005.” Psychology in the Schools 43 (2006): 737-743.
Sax, Linda J., Hagedorn, Linda S., Arrendondo, Marisol and DiCrisi, Frank A. “Faculty Research Productivity: Exploring the Role of Gender and Family-Related Factors.” Research in Higher Education 43 (2002): 423-46.
Teodorescu, Daniel. “Correlates of Faculty Publication Productivity: A Cross-National Analysis.” Higher Education 39 (2000): 201-222.
Thomas, Scott L. and Heck, Ronald H. “Analysis of Large-Scale Secondary Data in Higher Education Research: Potential Perils Associated with Complex Sampling Designs.” Research in Higher Education 42 (2001): 517-540.
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This interest in faculty workload and productivity continues today as some legis- lators tout having faculty teach more courses as a partial solution to raising college
According to Duderstadt, “a new p-word has replaced parking as the dominant faculty concern on campus- es these days: productivity. From state capitals to
Washington, from corporate executive suites to newspaper editorial offices, there is a strong belief that if only faculty would work harder, by spending more hours in the classroom, the quality of a college education would rise while its costs would decline.”1 Duderstadt’s observation illustrates a common perception of fac- ulty productivity: number of hours in the classroom. Conceived in this way, faculty productivity at the university level has been of interest throughout much of the 20th century.2
Workload Issues and Measures of Faculty
Productivity by Barbara K. Townsend and Vicki J. Rosser
Barbara K. Townsend is professor of higher education in the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia and director of the Center for Community College Research. Her current research interests include access to and attainment of the baccalaureate, including through transfer and the community college baccalaureate.
Vicki J. Rosser is associate professor of higher education in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and co-director of the University Council for Educational Administration Center for Academic Leadership. Her research interests include faculty members and midlevel administrative worklife issues, and leadership and academic governance.
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costs. This legislative interest has resulted in institutional efforts to measure instruc-
tional productivity so as to meet accountability requirements, at least in public institutions. During the 1990s, three major higher education associations (National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the American Association of Community Colleges) formed the Joint Commission on Accountability Reporting ( JCAR). The group was designed to develop a coordi- nated response to demands for information on productivity and accountability.7
JCAR developed measures of faculty activity but noted the limitations of its efforts: Namely, the measures provided descriptive information but could not serve institutions as “a management tool.”8 To meet the need for more comprehensive information, JCAR acknowledged the usefulness of what is generally called the Delaware Study or more formally, the National Study of Instructional Costs and Productivity.
Within institutions, faculty productivity is also an issue for faculty, particular- ly those on the tenure-track and those at institutions where faculty are expected to conduct research. There is currently “a higher bar to winning tenure” than in the 1970s and earlier.9 The higher bar is motivated by internal or institutional demands as well as by external or legislative ones. The elimination of age-based mandatory retirement, due to federal law in the 1980s, has contributed to institu- tional concerns about being “overtenured,” so standards for awarding tenure have been raised.10 Also, many faculty members, particularly at research universities, are currently pressured not only to publish more but also to generate grant funding to help pay their salary. While the general public and state legislators may not view grant funding and scholarship as important because they do not increase the num- ber of students and courses taught, these performance expectations are ones some faculty must meet to be successful or considered productive within their institu- tion. This tension between institutional views of faculty productivity and those of the general public and legislators illustrates the importance of clarifying what is meant by faculty productivity and determining how to measure it.11
There is a lack of agreement about what faculty productivity means. Defining it as number of classes or courses taught, number of credit hours generated,
and number of students taught is really defining teaching workload, which some
The elimination of age-based mandatory retirement, due to federal law in the 1980s, has contributed to institutional concerns about being ‘overtenured.’
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WORKLOAD ISSUES AND MEASURES OF FACULTY PRODUCTIVITY
equate with faculty productivity, especially in the public two-year college or com- munity college sector.12 Teaching workload is also considered by some to be instructional productivity as opposed to noninstructional productivity.13 Scholars seeking to examine the productivity of four-year college and university faculty typ- ically focus on noninstructional productivity and more specifically on research pro- ductivity. When examined, research or scholarly productivity is typically measured by counting the number and type of publications over a specific time period.14 The logic for this approach is that publication is usually “an indicator” of research.15
Similar logic would seem to underlie other measures of research productivity,
which include “peer recognition, citation indices/score, curriculum vitae, [and] weighted indices/summaries,”16 grant awards,17 and “fewer coauthors and higher authorship position”18 in publications.
Whether examining what is labeled as research or teaching productivity, those who count time spent in work activities and products generated through these activities, (e. g., credit hours generated, articles published) are not truly measuring productivity—at least according to some scholars. Meyer argues that workload and productivity are not the same. Rather, “workload traditionally captures how time is spent, while productivity is a measure of what is produced with that time.”19
Typically, faculty workload is calculated by three measures: (1) the total number of hours each week that faculty work to meet their job responsibilities, (2) the week- ly number of hours spent in instructional activities, and (3) the weekly number of hours spent on scholarly activities.20
When productivity is defined as what is produced during the time faculty spend on their work, the concept includes such things as credit hours generated or
articles published.21 But Middaugh, one of the key figures in the development of the Delaware Study, is adamant that emphasizing outcomes like scholarly publications and presentations and emphasizing number of hours worked, particularly in the classroom, reflect misguided views of faculty productivity.22 He maintains that the institutional or academic emphasis on number of published articles in a given time period has little meaning for the general public and legislators, who do not under- stand the nature of peer review and the meaning to academicians of a faculty mem- ber’s number of publications. To him, faculty productivity is more appropriately defined in terms of outcomes such as pass rates in certification exams and job place- ment of graduates. However, he concedes that understanding what faculty do, that
Faculty productivity is more appropriately defined in terms of outcomes such as pass rates in certification
exams and job placement of graduates.
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is, how they spend their time, is “the first step in defining faculty productivity.”23
Following Middaugh’s24 logic that the first step in examining faculty produc- tivity is to understand how faculty members spend their time, we sought to exam- ine on a national level the extent (number of hours worked per week) and the nature (instructional and research activities undertaken during these hours) of full- time faculty’s workload over an extended time period.
The specific research questions we asked are as follows: 1. What was the extent and nature of the faculty workload in 1993 and
2004? 2. Did faculty workload change in extent and/or nature from 1993 to 2004? 3. Were there differences in faculty workload by institutional type in 1993
and 2004? We anticipated that faculty workload would have increased between 1993 and
2004, perhaps in response to increased calls for greater productivity. We also antic- ipated institutional differences in both the number of hours worked and the out- put generated from instructional and research activities because of differences in institutional mission. Finally, we anticipated that research activities were more likely to have increased than instructional activities because research requirements for tenure and promotion have escalated.
As a result of our study, described below, we learned that faculty workload did indeed increase in the aggregate between 1993 and 2004. But there were
institutional differences in terms of the average work week and in the extent and nature of instructional activities and scholarly output. Some types of scholarly out- put increased in some institutional types but decreased in others. Contrary to our expectation, it appears that research output in certain forms declined in two insti-
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tutional types while instructional workload increased. Since 1988 the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and the
National Science Foundation (NSF) have sponsored every five years a national survey to measure various aspects of higher education faculty members’ profes- sional and institutional worklife. This survey is called the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF). In this study we use the 1993 and 2004 NSOPF restricted datasets. Both NSOPF databases (1993 and 2004) are nationally repre- sentative samples of faculty members in higher education institutions.
Because faculty roles are largely shaped by their employing institution’s dom-
inant mission, we focused on faculty at five types of public higher education insti- tutions: two-year colleges, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive colleges and univer- sities, doctoral-granting universities (labeled in NSOPF as “public other Ph.D.”), and research universities. By doing so, we hoped to capture possible differences in faculty’s teaching and research activities. Additionally, we restricted the study to public institutions because they are more subject to scrutiny by the general public and control by state legislators than are private institutions. Finally, we looked only at full-time instructional faculty.
For the purpose of this individual-level study, 18,563 full-time faculty members from public institutions were selected as a subset from two national samples:
11,421 faculty members from the 1993 NSOPF data set, and 7,142 from the 2004 NSOPF data set (See Table 1 in Appendix for specifics of the two subsets).25
To measure the extent of faculty workload, we used the NSOPF variable “average total hours worked per week” (includes paid and unpaid activities at insti- tution, and paid and unpaid activities not at institution). To measure the nature of the activities in their workload, we classified the activities into two categories: teaching or instructional workload and research or scholarly workload. We meas- ured instructional workload by the number of courses or classes taught (including both credit and non-credit), total classroom credit hours, and total number of stu- dents taught in credit classes. We measured scholarly workload by output within the last two years of articles in refereed journals; articles in nonrefereed journals; presentations; books, textbooks, and reports; and patents and computer software.
Descriptive statistics provide us an appropriate way to examine faculty mem- bers’ workload within each surveyed year and by institutional type. We also ran t- tests in the aggregate as well as within each institutional type to examine the mean differences between the 1993 and 2004 workload measures. While these databas-
We restricted the study to public institutions because they are more subject to scrutiny by the general public and
control by state legislators than are private institutions.
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WORKLOAD ISSUES AND MEASURES OF FACULTY PRODUCTIVITY
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es are nationally representative, we present these statistical differences with a note of caution; the respondents from the two subsets are different individuals from 1993 to 2004.26 These two subset years represent distinct snapshots in time rather than showing longitudinal changes that are measured over time.
Limitations of the study include the nature of the data: self-reports by faculty, some of whom may erroneously report the number of classes taught, number of stu- dents taught, number of publications, and so forth. Another major limitation was changes in the questions asked in the two iterations of the NSOPF survey. Each time the survey appears, some questions on the previous survey are omitted and some new
ones are added. Thus the questions researchers can ask, when using two or more sets of NSOPF data, are limited by the questions that are common across the sets. As a result we could not look at the weekly number of student contact hours, grants or fund- ed research, or service activities (e.g., institutional committee chaired and/or served on) because, unlike the 1993 survey, the 2004 survey did not ask about these activities.
As we anticipated, faculty workload, defined simply as the reported weekly num- ber of hours worked by faculty, significantly increased in the aggregate between
1993 and 2004: 50.61 hours in 1993 as compared to 52.12 in 2004 (p=.000). However, Table 2 illustrates the difference in work week by institutional type.
When examining the nature of the workload in terms of instructional activi- ties, one finds a significant increase between 1993 and 2004 in the total number of classes taught, both in the aggregate and in each institutional type (see Table 3). However, institutional-level examination of instructional and scholarly outputs reveals that faculty at certain institutional types had greater output (what some might label as productivity) in instructional activities while others had greater out- put in scholarly or research activities (see Tables 4 through 10). For example, dur- ing both years (1993 and 2004) two-year college faculty led in instructional work- load as measured by number of classes taught, credit hours generated, and total number of students taught in credit courses.
From 1993 to 2004 scholarly or research output increased significantly in the aggregate for all faculty and also for faculty in three institutional types for two cat- egories: number of articles in refereed journals and in nonrefereed journals (see Tables 6 and 7). As expected, there were significant differences by institutional type, with two-year faculty having the least number of articles in refereed and non- refereed journals. Scholarly output in the form of presentations increased both in
Faculty workload, defined simply as the reported weekly number of hours worked by faculty, significantly increased in the aggregate between 1993 and 2004.
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WORKLOAD ISSUES AND MEASURES OF FACULTY PRODUCTIVITY
the aggregate and for faculty at each type of institution with one exception: other Ph.D. institutions (see Table 8). Output in terms of books, textbooks, and reports, and number of patents and software in the last two years declined, both in the aggregate and for all institutional types (see Tables 9 and 10).
In sum, the extent (reported number of hours worked weekly) of faculty work- load increased from 1993 to 2004, both in the aggregate and for faculty at public two-year schools and at public comprehensive colleges and universities. However, the workweek declined in 2004 for faculty at liberal arts colleges and other Ph.D. and research universities. The nature of the workload changed somewhat between
1993 and 2004, with faculty in all institutional types reporting a greater number of classes taught. The total number of classroom credit hours declined in the aggregate in 2004, and for faculty in comprehensive institutions. Similarly, the number of total students taught in credit classes declined (non-significant, p=.132) in the aggregate in 2004, although it increased in liberal arts colleges, other Ph.D. institutions, and research universities. The scholarly aspects of faculty workload also appeared to change somewhat from 1993 to 2004. Output in the form of refereed articles and nonrefereed articles was significantly up in the aggregate, as were the number of pre- sentations. There were some variations by institutional type with faculty at other Ph.D. institutions and at research universities showing a decline in the number of juried articles and faculty in comprehensive colleges and universities showing a very slight decline in the number of presentations. However, the number of books, text- books, and reports, as well as the number of patents and software declined in the aggregate (p=.000) and in all institutional types.
The significance of the findings varies by how they are presented–in the aggre- gate for all faculty members or disaggregated by faculty in specific institu-
tional types. Policy makers and the general public seeing the increase from 1993 to 2004 in the self-reported number of hours worked may perceive that faculty are working more hours and thus are more productive. Those outside the academy may also assume that working more hours means faculty are teaching more stu- dents and/or more classes. But a closer look at the data indicates a decline from 1993 to 2004 in the number of total classroom credit hours taught and in the total number of students taught in credit classes, important measures of faculty produc- tivity for a general audience.
An audience of faculty and higher education administrators would note the
The nature of the workload changed between 1993 and 2004, with faculty in all institutional types
reporting a greater number of classes taught.
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mixed findings on scholarly output during the time of the study, both in the aggre- gate and by institutional type. In the aggregate faculty appear to have increased their productivity, if defined as generating more output of refereed articles, non- refereed articles, and presentations from 1993 to 2004. But this finding needs to be interpreted with caution. While scholarly output in the form of articles has increased, this may not be evidence of more faculty scholarly effort, but rather the result of “the increasing number and diversity of publication outlets (particularly in an age of online publishing).”27 Alternatively, this increase, as well as the increas- ing number of presentations, may reflect the trend toward multiple-authored
rather than single-authored work in certain disciplines.28 Of particular interest to administrators in other Ph.D. and research universities would be the decline in the number of refereed articles within the last two years of the 2004 study. Given the increasing emphasis on peer-reviewed articles to gain tenure and promotion, including to the rank of full professor, it is unclear why there would be this decline at these two institutional types, the ones most likely to require peer-reviewed arti- cles for promotion and tenure.
Both audiences—policy makers and the general public as well as higher educa- tion faculty and administrators—would see from this study the differences in
faculty workload (both extent and nature) by institutional type. Those who under- stand differences in institutional missions with consequent differences in expecta- tions for faculty would understand the differences found in the NSOPF studies. The community college emphasizes teaching, so its faculty members teach more classes than do faculty at the four-year institutions in the study. Liberal arts col- leges and comprehensive colleges and universities have more of a teaching mission than do institutions classified as other Ph.D. and research institutions, so faculty in liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions teach more classes than do faculty at other Ph.D. or research institutions. Since four-year college and univer- sity faculty members are typically expected to generate some scholarly output, they do so on the average more than do community college faculty, who are not typi- cally expected to conduct research.29 “In light of the fact that faculty activities dif- fer greatly across institutional types,” it would be imprudent to compare all insti- tutions, regardless of type, to a single standard such as a minimum number of con- tact hours with students.30
While the findings of this study reinforce the dichotomy between the work-
It would be imprudent to compare all institutions, regardless of type, to a single standard such as a minimum number of contact hours with students.
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week and output of two-year college faculty when compared to university faculty, this finding is not new. What is more striking is the differences in the instruction- al workload of faculty in liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions ver- sus faculty in other Ph.D. and research universities. In this study, faculty at liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions taught more classes and classroom credit hours than did faculty at the other two types of four-year institutions (other Ph.D. and research universities). At the same time the scholarly output in terms of refereed and non-refereed journal articles was much higher for faculty at com- prehensive institutions than for faculty at two-year colleges. These institutional
differences in faculty workload need to be understood by those seeking faculty careers and by administrators evaluating faculty in these institutions.
All audiences need to be cautious in assuming that faculty workload, defined here as number of hours worked and instructional and scholarly outputs gen-
erated during the hours worked, equates with faculty productivity. For example, the number of students taught in credit courses does not automatically equate to the number of students who learned the material in these courses. Similarly, the num- ber of articles produced and presentations made within the last two years of an NSOPF survey indicate how faculty members are spending part of their time, but not whether the articles and presentations are substantive contributions to the expansion of knowledge in a discipline or field. Information about faculty workload for all faculty members or for faculty members in different types of institutions sim- ply provides a starting point for questions about faculty productivity, not a definitive answer.31
Finally, for researchers, this study illustrates the difficulty in conducting sec- ondary analysis of existing national data sets when two or more iterations of the survey provide the data for the study. Working with NSOPF data across different iterations of the survey reveals the many substantive changes in the survey vari- ables. If the same questions are not used in each survey, it becomes very difficult to find a set of questions that can be examined across the studies. Yet, studies com- paring responses in different time periods are vital for a broad look at what is hap- pening, in this case with faculty workload over time.
The number of students taught in credit courses does not automatically equate to the number of students
who learned the material in these courses.
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Table 1. Faculty Respondents by Institutional Type
Table 2. Average Faculty Work Week in Public Institutions, 1993 and 2004 (Means and Standard Deviations)
Table 3. Total Number of Classes Taught (Credit and Non-Credit) in Public Institutions, 1993 and 2004
Table 4. Total Classroom Credit Hours in Classes in Public Institutions, 1993 and 2004
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 12.70 (5.87) 12.70 (5.68) Liberal arts 10.04 (2.92) 10.51 (3.77) Comprehensive 10.03 (4.30) 09.95 (3.54) Other Ph.D. 07.60 (3.66) 08.23 (3.56) Research 06.44 (3.59) 06.96 (3.50) Total 10.27 (5.34) 09.95 (4.95)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 4.06 (2.37) 4.94 (2.81) Liberal arts 3.02 (1.44) 3.72 (1.66) Comprehensive 3.12 (1.80) 3.48 (1.33) Other Ph.D. 2.33 (1.75) 2.98 (1.64) Research 1.71 (1.55) 2.48 (1.70) Total 3.14 (2.17) 3.67 (2.30)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 46.66 (16.01) 49.17 (13.52) Liberal arts 53.16 (16.06) 51.63 (13.41) Comprehensive 51.34 (16.92) 53.15 (13.13) Other Ph.D. 54.34 (15.14) 53.17 (12.77) Research 55.20 (15.07) 54.71 (12.70) Total 50.61 (16.40) 52.13 (13.31)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 4,320 (37.8%) 2,445 (34.2%) Liberal arts 61 (0.5%) 245 (3.4%) Comprehensive 3,659 (32.0%) 1,784 (25.0%) Other Ph.D. 1,546 (13.5%) 881 (12.3%) Research 1,835 (16.1%) 1,787 (25.0%) Total 11,421 7,142
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WORKLOAD ISSUES AND MEASURES OF FACULTY PRODUCTIVITY
Table 5. Total Students Taught in Credit Classes in Public Institutions, 1993 and 2004
Table 6. Number of Articles in Refereed Journal in Last Two Years
Table 7. Number of Articles in Nonrefereed Journals in Last Two Years
Table 8. Number of Presentations in Last Two Years
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 1.26 (4.47) 1.73 (3.71) Liberal arts 2.02 (3.85) 2.58 (3.31) Comprehensive 2.93 (5.91) 3.57 (4.59) Other Ph.D. 4.27 (7.51) 4.21 (5.76) Research 4.73 (7.77) 5.03 (6.44) Total 2.76 (6.16) 3.35 (5.13)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 0.12 (0.92) 0.41 (1.59) Liberal arts 0.26 (1.03) 0.94 (2.95) Comprehensive 0.50 (1.66) 0.97 (2.39) Other Ph.D. 0.81 (2.28) 1.17 (2.73) Research 0.97 (2.48) 1.35 (3.07) Total 0.47 (1.73) 0.89 (2.45)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 0.15 (0.98) 0.25 (1.10) Liberal arts 0.79 (1.31) 0.96 (1.81) Comprehensive 0.91 (2.01) 1.41 (2.41) Other Ph.D. 2.20 (3.47) 1.98 (3.09) Research 3.18 (4.56) 2.73 (4.08) Total 1.16 (2.80) 1.40 (2.87)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 98.65 (56.91) 92.69 (54.65) Liberal arts 67.88 (29.80) 83.41 (50.30) Comprehensive 98.65 (56.96) 91.80 (58.06) Other Ph.D. 79.57 (66.35) 88.67 (70.75) Research 78.25 (84.02) 86.01 (88.62) Total 91.03 (63.12) 89.98 (67.38)
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E N D N O T E S 1 James J. Duderstadt, A University for the 21st Century, 2000, 154. 2 David E. Gullatt and Sue W. Weaver, Faculty Productivity: A National Institutional Perspective,
1995. 3 Joseph C. Burke, Reinventing Accountability: From Bureaucratic Rules to Performance Results,
2000; Michael K. McLendon, James C. Hearn, and Russ Deaton, Called to Account: Analyzing the Origins and Spread of State Performance-Accountability Policies for Higher Education, 2006; Katrina A. Meyer, Faculty Workload Studies: Perspectives, Needs, and Future Directions, 1998; Jennifer B. Presley and Edward Engelbride, Accounting for Faculty Productivity in the Research University, 1998.
4 James S. Fairweather and Robert A. Rhoads, Teaching and the Faculty Role: Enhancing the Commitment to Instruction in American Colleges and Universities, 1995; Katrina A. Meyer, op cit.
5 Edward R. Hines and J. Russell III Higham, Faculty Workload and State Policy, November 1996. 6 David E. Gullatt and Sue W. Weaver, op cit. 7 Michael F. Middaugh, Understanding Faculty Productivity: Standards and Benchmarks for Colleges
and Universities, 2001, 30. 8 Ibid., 51. 9 Hugh Hawkins, The Making of the Liberal Arts College Identity, 2000, 30. 10 Ibid., 21. 11 Katrina A. Meyer, op cit. 12 James Palmer, Enhancing Faculty Productivity: A State Perspective, September 1998. 13 Jennifer B. Presley and Edward Engelbride, op cit. 14 Elizabeth G. Creamer, Assessing Faculty Publication Productivity: Issues of Equity, 1998; Katrina
A. Meyer, op cit.; Linda J. Sax, Linda S. Hagedorn, Marisol Arrendondo, and Frank A. DiCrisi,
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Table 9. Number of Books, Textbooks, and Reports in Last Two Years
Table 10. Number of Patents and Software in Last Two Years
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 0.08 (0.66) 0.03 (0.36) Liberal arts 0.13 (0.59) 0.03 (0.25) Comprehensive 0.11 (0.66) 0.04 (0.28) Other Ph.D. 0.15 (0.76) 0.06 (0.37) Research 0.17 (0.80) 0.10 (0.55) Total 0.12 (0.73) 0.05 (0.40)
Institutional Type 1993 2004
Two-year 0.44 (2.61) 0.24 (1.04) Liberal arts 0.72 (2.11) 0.31 (0.86) Comprehensive 0.92 (3.47) 0.41 (1.09) Other Ph.D 1.47 (4.95) 0.56 (1.44) Research 1.57 (4.83) 0.57 (1.49) Total 0.91 (3.70) 0.41 (1.27)
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Faculty Research Productivity: Exploring the Role of Gender and Family-Related Factors, 2002; Daniel Teodorescu, Correlates of Faculty Publication Productivity: A Cross-National Analysis, 2000.
15 Mary F. Fox, Research, Teaching, and Publication Productivity: Mutuality Versus Competition, 1992, 296.
16 Steven F. Doellefeld, Faculty Productivity: A Conceptual Analysis and Research Synthesis, 1996. 17 Maureen M. Black and Wayne E. Holden, The Impact of Gender on Productivity and Satisfaction
Among Medical School Psychologists, 1998. 18 Gabrielle A. Roberts, Kim S. Davis, Dinorah Zanger, Aimee Gerrard-Morris, and Daniel H.
Robinson, Top Contributors to the School Psychology Literature: 1996-2005 (2006): 737. 19 Katrina A. Meyer, op cit., 45-46. 20 Katrina A. Meyer, op cit. 21 Ibid. 22 Michael F. Middaugh, op cit. 23 Ibid., 10. 24 Ibid. 25 We used the 1994 Carnegie classification variable for both datasets because we could reduce
these data more specifically from privates and medical institutions. 26 Weighting is an important aspect of this study. First, to correct for oversampling, the relative
weight was developed by dividing raw weights by their means. Second, to correct for clustering effects, the relative weights were further adjusted by the design effect (DEFF). For more clari- fication and explanation of weighting approach used in this study, see Scott L. Thomas and Ronald H. Heck, Analysis of Large-Scale Secondary Data in Higher Education Research: Potential Perils Associated with Complex Sampling Designs, 2001.
27 Linda J. Sax, Linda S. Hagedorn, Marisol Arrendondo and Frank A. DiCrisi, op cit., 424. 28 Gabrielle A. Roberts, Kim S. Davis, Dinorah Zanger, Aimee Gerrard-Morris, and Daniel H.
Robinson, op cit. 29 Ibid. 30 MGT of America, Inc., Faculty Productivity Issues in State Universities, 2002; See also Illinois
Board of Higher Education, Faculty Advisory Council's Response to the Board’s Request for Input Regarding Faculty Productivity Issues, 2003.
31 Michael F. Middaugh, op cit.
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