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Faculty characteristics: What are their relationships with academic outcomes of community college students?
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Content
FACULTY CHARACTERISTICS: WHAT ARE THEIR RELATIONSHIPS
WITH ACADEMIC OUTCOMES OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS?
by
Wayne H. Terada
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
August 2005
Copyright 2005 Wayne H. Terada
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UMI Number: 3196902
Copyright 2005 by
Terada, Wayne H.
All rights reserved.
INFORMATION TO USERS
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®
UMI
UMI Microform 3196902
Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
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1 1
DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Tod, Tyran, some very special
people, and to the memory of my father. This milestone has been attained only
through your love and inspiration.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have to thank so many wonderful people for their support during my
journey to understand more about this world. First is Dr. Linda Hagedorn, who
epitomizes what we all wish for in a dissertation chair - a professional who is
knowledgeable, accessible, and who always balanced just the right mix of freedom
and counsel to ensure that I never strayed far from the right track. I also want to
express my sincere appreciation to my committee members, Dr Melora Sundt and
Dr. Robert Rueda, for their guidance and meaningful suggestions to improve this
dissertation. I have learned so much from each of you.
Of course, I want to acknowledge Bill Murray, a USC alumnus, who
encouraged me to continue my learning in this wonderful program, and to Sarah
Novak, who spent countless hours editing this dissertation.
Finally, to my colleagues at the University of Southern California Hawaii
Cohort, thank you for your friendships and unqualified support. I will always
cherish the opportunities for open dialogue that truly enhanced this learning
experience.
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iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
LIST OF TABLES vi
LIST OF FIGURES viii
ABSTRACT ix
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION 1
Background of the Problem 3
Statement of the Problem 4
Purpose of the Study 7
Research Questions 8
Hypotheses 8
Significance of the Problem 10
Assumptions 12
Limitations 13
Delimitations 13
Definition of Terms 14
Organization of the Study 15
2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 17
Introduction 17
Literature Review 18
Conclusion 64
3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 66
Introduction 66
Research Questions 67
Methodology 75
Population and Sample 77
Instrumentation 81
Data Collection 84
Data Analysis 84
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V
CHAPTER
RESULTS 86
Introduction 86
Statistical Analysis Results 86
Research Questions 89
5 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND
RECOMMENDATIONS 116
Introduction 116
Purpose of the Study 117
Summary of Findings 117
Conclusions 124
Recommendations 130
Limitations 132
REFERENCES 134
APPENDIX
A TRUCCS COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENT
SURVEY 147
B TRUCCS PARTICIPATING FACULTY SURVEY 161
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v i
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
1. School Enrollment by Campus for Fall 2001 78
2. Fall 2002 LACCD Student Ethnicities 79
3. Faculty Teaching Experience 87
4. Number of Times Faculty Previously Taught the Course 87
5. Faculty Age 88
6. Records by Faculty Employment Status 90
7. Grades Awarded by Full-Time and Part-Time Faculty 91
8. Chi-Square Test (Research Question #1) 92
9. Cross Tabulation (Employment Status and How2
Long Teaching) 92
10. Descriptive Statistics (Means and Standard Deviations) 93
11. Results of the ANOVA (Tests of Between-Subjects Effects) 95
12. Summary of Tests of Between-Subj ects Effects (Teaching
Experience) 95
13. Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances 97
14. Post-FIoc Test of Multiple Comparisons 98
15. Between-Subjects Factors (Research Question #2) 100
16. Chi-Square Test (Research Question #2) 100
17. Cross Tabulation (Employment Status and Times Taught
Course) 102
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V ll
TABLE
18. Descriptive Statistics (Means and Student Deviatons) 102
19. Results of the ANOVA (Tests of Between-Subjects
Efforts) 103
20. Summary of Tests of Between-Subjects Effects (Research
Question #2) 104
21. Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances 105
22. Post-Hoc Test of Multiple Comparison 106
23. Between-Subjects Factors (Research Question #3) 109
24. Chi-Square Test (Research Question #3) 109
25. Cross Tabulation (Employment Status and Faculty Age) 110
26. Descriptive Statistics (Means and Student Deviations) 110
27. Results of the ANOVA (Tests of Between-Subjects Effects) 111
28. Summary of Tests of Between-Subjects Effects 112
29. Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances 113
30. Post-Hoc Test of Multiple Comparisons 114
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viii
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE
1. Mean Grades by Faculty Employment Status and
Teaching Experience 96
2. Mean Grades by Years of Teaching Experience 99
3. Mean Grades by Faculty Employment Status and Times
Taught the Course 105
4. Faculty Mean Grade by Number of Times Taught Course 108
5. Mean Grades by Employment Status and Faculty Age 113
6. Mean Grade by Faculty Age 115
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IX
ABSTRACT
Within the past two to three decades, there has been a tremendous growth in
the numbers of part-time faculty in higher education. However, empirical research
examining the existence of differences in the academic outcomes of students taught
by full-time or part-time faculty remains limited. This situation has especially
significant implications for community colleges as a substantial portion of their
instructional faculty are employed part-time. This study utilized analysis of
variance (ANOVA) to analyze data from the Transfer and Retention of Urban
Community College Students (TRUCCS) project to determine the existence of
statistically significant relationships and interactions between part-time faculty
characteristics and student academic outcomes. TRUCCS data was collected from
students and faculty at nine campuses in a large, urban community college district.
This study found students achieved similar academic outcomes in courses taught by
full- or part-time faculty. On the other hand, there were statistically significant
interactions between faculty employment status, teaching experience, the number
of times faculty previously taught a course, and faculty age; however, no overall
distinguishing trends were revealed. Finally, the slight negative correlation
between faculty age and student academic outcomes would suggest warranted
additional research on this relationship.
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1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Part-time employees make up a large segment of the new American
economy as a result of their lower cost and the flexibility they provide to employers
responding to changing productivity or business conditions; these employees can
be “employed, dismissed, and reemployed” in an arbitrary manner, as necessary
(Kraimer, Wayne, Liden, & Sparrow, 2005; van Rijswijk, Bekker, & Rutte, 2004);
Moorman & Harland, 2002; Milner & Pinder, 2001; Conway & Briner, 2002;
Rosendaal, 2003; Matusik & Hill, 1998; Cohen & Brawer, 2003, 85). As a result,
companies have been filling full-time positions with part-timers in epidemic
proportions (AFT, 1996) and even the nation’s colleges and universities have not
been immune from this practice (Cohen & Brawer, 2003; Valadez & Anthony,
2001; Tirelli, 1997). In fact, there have been suggestions that the utilization of
part-timers to provide classroom instruction has become a way of life at many
institutions (Gappa & Leslie, 1993); however, scholars such as Burton Clark have
cautioned that excessive numbers of part-timers could place the very essence of the
academic profession at risk as: “. . . nothing runs down a profession faster than to
shift its work from full-time labor requiring credentialed experts to an operation
that can be staffed by casual laborers” (Clark, 1997, 38).
Part-time faculty, although making up approximately 40 percent of the total
instructional faculty in higher education (Charfauros & Tierney, 1999), are still
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2
often characterized as “migrant laborers” (Gappa & Leslie, 1993, 34) or “freeway
flyers” (Grubb, 1999, 332) who “come in, teach a class, and go home— or more
likely go to another campus to teach another course” (Tierney, 2003, 2). The
illustration of faculty traversing freeways to different classrooms frames a faculty-
member who Buck (2001) suggests is more vulnerable than a full-time faculty to
“quality-impairing” temptations such as relying more on objective evaluations
instead of writing assignments because of time constraints (20). Other influences
to lower educational quality have been reported by Schuetz (2002) and Jacobs
(1998): (i) when part-time faculty receive teaching assignments close to the start of
a semester, this leaves them with little time to prepare; (ii) when adjuncts are twice
as likely as full-time faculty to report spending no time with students outside of
class on their most recent working day; or (iii) when part-timers do not revise their
syllabus or teaching objectives or else use generic rather than institution-specific
syllabi. Finally, Haeger (1998) has written that the significant utilization of part-
time faculty threatens the quality of education in terms of course content, advising,
faculty-student interaction, and collegiality within academic departments (85).
However, not all of the literature has correlated the use of part-time faculty
with lower quality of education. In their prominent publication, The Invisible
Faculty: Improving the Status o f Part-timers in Higher Education, Gappa & Leslie
(1993) maintained they did not uncover any significant differences in the
educational quality provided by either full- or part-time faculty. In addition,
Sonner (2000) found that both full- and part-time faculty have comparable teaching
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3
abilities, while Haeger (1998) reported no differences in teaching evaluations for
either full- or part-time faculty. Moreover, separate articles addressing pedagogical
practices between the two faculty segments reported both full- and part-time faculty
groups tended to make similar use of instructional methods; as an example, 43
percent of class time for lectures, 15 percent of the time for class discussions, and
about 11 percent of class time for exams and quizzes (Leslie & Gappa, 2002, 64;
Schuetz, 2002, 40).
Background of the Problem
Traditionally, the nation’s colleges and universities have relied heavily on
full-time professors to meet educational demands. As recently as the early 1970s,
full-timers accounted for approximately four out of every five instructional faculty
(Charfauros & Tierney, 1999) and adjuncts were used prudently; only as temporary
solutions to full-time faculty shortages (Bricault, 1998) or else to complement full
time instructional staff with practical knowledge and skills that would keep
postsecondary institutions “on the cutting edge” (Wyles, 1998, 89). However,
within the past two-to-three decades, postsecondary institutions have begun to
replace full-time professors with lower-cost part-timers; fueled in large part by the
expansion in student enrollments and the reduction in state-govemment
appropriations (Schuster, 2003; Sheldon, 2003; Antony & Valadez, 2002;
McArthur, 1999; Cohen & Brawer, 2003). Thus, by the end of the 1990s, part-time
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and non-tenured faculty numbered more than 400,000 or approximately 40 percent
of the total instructional faculty (Charfauros & Tierney, 1999).
There is no doubt that the growth of part-time faculty has taken place
throughout higher education (Austin, 2002; Pisani & Stott, 1998); however, their
usage has varied by institution-type and academic discipline. At public and private
four-year institutions, part-timers have continued to remain in the minority
(Charfauros & Tierney, 1999); on the other hand, Akroyd, Jaeger, Jackowski, and
Jones (2004), used data from the National Center for Educational Statistics to trace
the growing segment of part-time instructional faculty in two-year institutions from
approximately 52 percent of the total faculty in 1988 to almost 64 percent, today.
In addition, after an examination of the NFOPF:93, Anderson (2002) reported that
the disciplines which contained the highest percentages of part-time faculty
members as a proportion of total faculty were fine arts (59.9 %), humanities
(52.3 %), social sciences (51.2 %), and education (50.2 %); by contrast, the
disciplines associated with the lowest percentages of adjuncts were natural sciences
(32.2 %), engineering (36.1 %) and health sciences (46.6 %) (12).
Statement of the Problem
In spite of the explosive growth of part-time faculty in higher education,
there has been surprisingly limited empirical research on this faculty segment
(Feldman & Turnley, 2001). As a result, researchers and other interested parties
searching for information have had to rely on articles printed in the mass media
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(Leatherman, 1997; Lords, 1999; Schneider, 1998) or on literature that has
generally focused on the numbers, qualifications, and motivations of part-timers
(Schibik & Harrington, 2004, 2). For example, subsequent to conducting a
literature search, Bolge (1995) reported that most of the materials on part-timers in
higher education were “attitudinal and qualitative” and that: . . it consists of
position papers, guidelines, statements of concern, and training programs and
materials to improve teaching effectiveness ..(8). McArthur (1999) also pointed
out that his review of the literature on the subject uncovered mainly anecdotal
evidence or research which focused on institutional use of part-timers as a result of
fiscal constraints or else compared the academic integrity of the two faculty classes.
The author further maintained that this limited supply of empirical research has
tended to prevent accurate comparisons of the instructional effectiveness of full-
and part-time faculty; thereby, leaving institutional administrators and other
interested parties without the means to make valid conclusions on the pros or cons
of continuing the practice of employing large numbers of part-timers in higher
education (67).
As a result, researchers studying this growing section of higher education
faculty have called for much more empirical research, with special emphasis on the
relationship between part-time faculty and student outcomes (Schibik and
Harrington, 2004; Leslie & Gappa, 2002; Pisani & Stott, 1998; Tuckman &
Caldwell, 1979). While limited, following is a sample list of the types of empirical
research that have been conducted in community colleges or in 4-year institutions,
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6
utilized national datasets, or have examined this topic in the workplace. The first
list includes research at community colleges: 1) a study examining student learning
at one community college campus (Bolge, 1995); 2) research of grading patterns at
a small two-year institution (McArthur, 1999); and 3) a comparison of grades in a
sequential English course at a large community college (Davis, Belcher, &
McKitterick, 1986). The second list contains research at 4-year institutions which
have focused on the relationship of faculty employment status with grades, labor
status and student outcomes (Fedler, Counts, & Stoner, 1989; Sonner, 2000; Zahn
& Schramm, 1992; Barry & Thompson, 1997; Tirelli, 1997; Feldman & Tumley,
2001). The third list contains research by Gappa & Leslie (1993), Anderson
(2002), Antony & Valadez (2002), Akroyd, Jaeger, Jackowski, & Jones (2004),
Benjamin (1998), Cleary (2002), and Gahn & Twombly (2001) who examined full-
and part-time faculty utilizing national datasets; and a final list contains research
conducted on samples gathered from the workplace (Conway & Briner, 2002;
Edwards & Robinson, 2001; Epstein, Gonzales, Weinfurt, Boekeloo, Yuan, &
Chase, 2001).
This study’s examination of the relationships or interactions between
faculty characteristics and students’ academic outcomes has been anchored by the
call for more empirical research on this relationship (Schibik and Elarrington, 2004;
Leslie & Gappa, 2002; Pisani & Stott, 1998; Tuckman & Caldwell, 1979). The
research parameters have expanded on the work of Feldman & Tumley (2001) and
Hagedom (2005). After completing research on part-time faculty job satisfaction
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7
and the role of career stages on job experiences, Feldman & Turnley (2001)
articulated a clear need for additional research on this faculty segment, with a
specific focus on quality of instruction impacts. They also maintained that the
sample size of future studies should be sufficient as to allow for analysis of faculty
characteristics. While also calling for additional research on this faculty segment,
Hagedorn (2005) added further focus to the study’s framework with her call for an
examination of whether student academic outcomes differ when courses were
taught by either full- or part-time faculty and whether achievement outcome results
were moderated by faculty experience levels.
Purpose of the Study
The objective of this study is to examine a sample of students enrolled at
nine campuses in a large, urban community college district to determine whether
there are statistically significant relationships or interactions between faculty
employment status, faculty teaching experience, the number of times faculty
previously taught a course, faculty age, and the grades they awarded to evaluate
students’ academic outcomes. The dependent variable in this study is identified as
student academic outcomes. This variable will be measured through the use of a
proxy identified as student end-of-course grades. The grades were provided by the
Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) for students enrolled in the
Fall 2001 semester.
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Research Questions
1. What is the relationship between the employment category of faculty (full
time or part-time) employed by the Los Angeles Community College District
(LACCD) and student academic outcomes (measured by the end-of-course
grades)? Does the length of faculty teaching experience moderate the
relationship between faculty employment category (full- or part-time) and
student academic outcomes?
2. Is there a statistically significant relationship or interaction between full-time
and part-time faculty members, the number of times faculty members teach a
particular course, and the evaluation of student academic outcomes by the
awarding of course grades?
3. Is there a statistically significant relationship or interaction between full-time
and part-time faculty members employed by the LACCD, faculty age and the
evaluation of student academic outcomes by the awarding of course grades?
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1
Ho: There will not be a statistically significant relationship between
faculty employment status and the course grades faculty award to evaluate
students’ academic outcomes.
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Hi: There will be a statistically significant relationship between the
course grades awarded by full-time or part-time faculty.
Hypothesis 2
Ho: There will not be a statistically significant relationship or
interaction between faculty members’ employment status, faculty length of
teaching experience and the grades they award to evaluate students’
academic outcomes.
Hi: There will be a statistically significant relationship or
interaction between full-time and part-time faculty members’ length of
teaching experience and the grades they award.
Hypothesis 3
Ho: There will not be a statistically significant relationship or
interaction between the number of times full-time and part-time faculty
members teach a particular course with the grades they award to evaluate
students’ academic outcomes.
Hi: There will be a statistically significant relationship or
interaction between the number of times full-time and part-time faculty
members teach a particular course with the grades they award.
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Hypothesis 4
Ho: There will not be a statistically significant relationship or
interaction between the ages of full-time and part-time faculty members and
the grades they award to evaluate students’ academic outcomes.
Hi: There will be a statistically significant relationship or
interaction between faculty employment status, faculty age and the course
grades faculty award.
Significance of the Problem
Part-time faculty have been described as teaching professionals employed
by a college or university on a semester-by semester basis instead of in a full-time
or permanent capacity (Bolge, 1995, 14). Lacking many of the elements of
compensation, benefits or status enjoyed by full-time faculty (Langenberg, 1998,
41), these employees have been generally paid only for their contributions in the
classroom; thus, they come in, teach a class, and go home— or more likely go to
another campus to teach another course (Tierney, 2003). As a result, part-timers
either have not been able or have not been willing to contribute to the university in
a manner typical of regular faculty (Langenberg, 1998, 41); that is, committee
service, advising, curriculum development, and program coordination (Schibik &
Harrington, 2004; Gappa & Leslie, 1993, 102-103). This situation has caused
researchers to caution that false economies could be associated with the practice of
utilizing large numbers of part-timers; that is, in spite of immediate cash savings,
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11
the lack of participation by adjuncts in crucial, but non-classroom activities is
problematic (Gappa & Leslie, 1993, 102-103); and especially when these activities
fall to a shrinking cadre of full-time faculty (Outcalt, 2000).
Further, an industry composed of over 400,000 part-time professional
faculty members (AFT, 2003), the issue of their effect on students’ quality of
education has again surfaced as a major issue (Haeger, 1998). In spite of the clear
need for research to evaluate differences in the instructional quality provided by
faculty in different employment categories (Banachowski, 1996), there has been
very limited empirical evidence (Schneider, 1998). As an example, after a recent
review of the literature on part-time faculty, McArthur (1999) noted he found
mainly anecdotal opinions; thus, making it very difficult for interested parties to
either support or oppose the continued use of part-time faculty. Thus institutional
administrators and other parties desiring information on this subject have had to
rely mainly on media articles and editorials (Leslie & Gappa, 2002; Schneider,
1998; Leatherman, 1997; Bolge, 1995). Moreover, the research that is available
has reported contrasting results; one side of the debate claiming there have been no
significant differences in the learning that has occurred in the classrooms of either
full-time or part-time faculty (Gappa & Leslie, 1993; Roueche, Roueche, &
Milliron, 1996; Bolge, 1995), while the other side of the debate warning that the
extensive use of part-time faculty will: (i) threaten the quality of student learning
(Buck, 2001); (ii) cause an inflation of student grades (McArthur, 1999; Sonner,
2000); (iii) destroy the professorate (Haeger, 1998); (iv) result in a loss of social
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12
capital in the academic community (Tiemey, 2003), or (5) cause a reduction in
much needed faculty-student faculty interaction (Schibik & Harrington, 2004;
Thompson, 2001; Stack, 2000).
The lack of empirical research on part-time faculty has especially
significant implications for two-year institutions. While all postsecondary
institutions have expanded their use of adjuncts because of benefits such as
scheduling flexibility, lower costs, and market responsiveness (Conway & Briner,
2002, 279), two-year institutions have been the largest market participant; such that
part-time faculty members now make up between 62 and 64 percent of instructional
faculty at community colleges (Akroyd, Jaeger, Jackowski, & Jones, 2004;
Anderson, 2002; Grubb, 1999).
Assumptions
1. The subjects answered the questions on the TRUCCS survey instrument
honestly.
2. The TRUCCS sample was representative of students in a large, urban
community college district.
3. The data used in this study were accurately recorded and analyzed.
4. The research, findings, and conclusions of the study represent research which
will provide administrators, policy-makers, faculty, and other individuals
interested in the topic with another source of empirical evidence from which
to make employment decisions.
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5. The purposes, processes, and elements of the framework studied will have a
degree of applicability and can be generalized to schools throughout the
nation which form a large urban, community college district.
Limitations
The following limitations pertain to this study:
1. The study is limited to the students and faculty who voluntarily agreed to
participate in the Transfer and Retention of Urban Community College
Students (TRUCCS) project.
2. This study is limited to the number of students surveyed by the TRUCCS
project team and the amount of time researchers had to collect survey data.
3. The validity of this study is limited to the reliability of the survey instruments
used in the TRUCCS project.
4. The study results are dependent on the accuracy of the student transcript data
provided by the LACCD.
Delimitations
This study will be confined to the survey and transcript data collected
through the Transfer and Retention of Urban Community College Students
(TRUCCS) project. The focus of the study was to determine whether statistically
significant relationships and interactions existed between faculty employment
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status, faculty experience, the number of times faculty taught a course, and faculty
age on the grades awarded to students enrolled in courses at nine campuses in the
LACCD.
Definition of Terms
The following terms will be used in this study:
Part-time employee: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS),
this is an employee who usually works between 1 and 34 hours per week (at all
jobs within an establishment) regardless of the number of hours worked in the
reference week.
Part-time faculty member. An individual who is employed less than full
time by a postsecondary institution in a temporary, non-tenure-track faculty
position (Gappa & Leslie, 1993, 3; Bolge, 1995) because their primary professional
employment lies outside the university (Langenberg, 1998).
Full-time faculty. An individual who is hired to fill a position identified by
institutional personnel documents or collective bargaining contract in a full-time,
permanent faculty position. A position could be identified by such terms as
professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor, or lecturer. In
addition, the full-time position could be on either a tenure-track or a non-tenure-
track line.
Teaching experience: Teaching experience for this study was self-reported
by faculty members and the categories will follow the metric utilized in the
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TRUCCS faculty survey. Teaching experience was segmented into five categories;
faculty with 1 -3 years of experience, faculty with 4-6 years of experience, faculty
with 7-10 years of teaching experience, faculty with 11-20 years of experience, and
faculty with 21 or more years of experience.
Urban community college'. An urban community college is one that is
located in or close to a major city. These institutions face numerous challenges, the
most notable of which is a student population where students have one or more of
the following characteristics: income below the poverty line, immigrant status,
first-generation college student, a member of an ethnic minority group, in need of
remediation, or whose first language is not English (Hirose-Wong, 1999).
Organization of the Study
Chapter 1 of the study begins with the introduction, and follows with the
statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the research questions to be
answered, the research hypotheses, the significance of the study, and the definitions
of terms. The chapter concludes with the assumptions, limitations, delimitations,
and a description of the study’s organization.
Chapter 2 is a review of relevant literature. This chapter will focus on a
review of part-time faculty in postsecondary. The format includes an introduction,
conclusions, and implications.
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Chapter 3 presents the methodology used in the study including the research
design; population and sampling procedure, a description of the survey instruments,
and concludes with a discussion of the study’s analytical methods.
Chapter 4 presents the study findings. Discussions of descriptive and
inferential statistical findings are presented.
Chapter 5 summarizes the findings from the literature review and the
findings from Chapter 4. This chapter also presents a discussion of the conclusions
and study recommendations.
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CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Introduction
Relevant literature has been organized around the following research
question: Are there significant relationships or interactions between the
employment category of faculty employed by the LACCD, teaching experience, the
number of times faculty taught a course, and faculty age with the grades they award
to evaluate students’ academic outcomes? Section 1 reviews the literature that
focuses on the use of part-time faculty in postsecondary education. This section
begins with a historical review on the use of part-time employees and then moves
to a discussion of part-time faculty in higher education. This section also contains
discussions of job satisfaction, teaching experience, faculty age, compares the
teaching quality of full- and part-time faculty, and concludes with an analysis of the
grading patterns of faculty. Section 2 contains a description of the roles and
functions of the community college. In this section, the literature review was
organized in the context of discussions focusing in the following areas: the
historical perspective of community colleges; benefits associated with college; and
the roles and functions of community colleges.
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Literature Review
Today a prominent segment of the new American economy is made up of
contingent workers because of their lower-cost and the fact that these employees
can be hired, dismissed, and then re-hired, as necessary (Cohen & Brawer, 2003,
85). The expanding use of these employees by the nation’s employers as
replacements for full-timers has sometimes been described as an epidemic
spreading across America (AFT, 1996) and the active recruitment of adjuncts in
lieu of tenure-track faculty by colleges and universities is just one example of this
overall trend (Cohen & Brawer, 2003, 85). However, scholars such as Burton
Clark have cautioned that “... nothing runs down a profession faster than to shift
its work from full-time labor requiring credentialed experts to an operation that can
be staffed by casual laborers” (Clark, 1997, 38).
The practice of employing large numbers of adjuncts began in the late
1980s when institutional administrators discovered advantages to substituting full
time professors with part-time faculty; as a low-cost method of providing more
classes (Cohen & Brawer, 2003), as a risk-free talent pool on which institutions
rely for pilot programs and a way to allow scheduling flexibility (Wyles, 1998), or
as an alternative to balancing institutional budgets in light of expanding student
enrollments (Tirelli, 1997). As a result, the numbers of part-timers have risen
significantly during the past two decades, almost doubling to more than 400,000
(Anderson, 2002), or approximately 40 percent of the overall instructional faculty
(Charfauros & Tierney, 1999). With the economic conditions facing the nation’s
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colleges and universities, there are indications the growing trend of relying on
adjuncts for instructional delivery is unlikely to soon subside (McArthur, 1999;
Roueche et ah, 1996).
Part-time faculty have been described as teaching professionals employed
by a college or university on a semester-by semester basis instead of in a full-time
or permanent capacity (Bolge, 1995, 14). Lacking many of the elements of
compensation, benefits or status enjoyed by full-time faculty (Langenberg, 1998,
41), these employees have been generally paid only for their contributions in the
classroom; thus, they come in, teach a class, and go home— or more likely go to
another campus to teach another course (Tierney, 2003, 2). As a result, part-timers
either have not been able or have not been willing to contribute to the university in
a manner typical of regular faculty (Langenberg, 1998, 41); that is, committee
service, advising, curriculum development, and program coordination (Schibik &
Harrington, 2004; Gappa & Leslie, 1993, 102-103). This situation has caused
researchers to caution that false economies could be associated with the practice of
utilizing large numbers of part-timers; that is, in spite of immediate cash savings,
the lack of participation by adjuncts in crucial, but non-classroom activities is
problematic (Gappa & Leslie, 1993, 102-103). Furthermore, other problems could
be encountered as these important activities could to fall to a shrinking cadre of
full-time faculty (Outcalt, 2000).
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Part-Time Employees
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) released the Report o f the AFT
Part-Time and Contingent Workers Task Force (2003), which described the typical
American job as one where the employee worked 40 hours a week for the same
employer, 52 weeks a year, for many years (1). The report also noted a dramatic
decrease in jobs that did not meet these criteria as employers had been increasing
the number of jobs that were not full-time, year-round, or long-term; that out of a
workforce of 123 million, approximately 70 percent of working Americans had
jobs fitting the standard model but the remaining workers (approximately 37
million) were without jobs categorized as full-time, permanent. The report
segregated this group of non-full-time employees into sub-groups of independent
contractors, the self-employed, temporary and on-call workers (16 %), and part-
time employees (13 %) (5). Additional information on part-timers supplied by the
Current Population Survey (CPS), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), from 2000 to
2004, revealed that female employees 16 years and older, made up about 68 percent
of the part-time workforce. The CPS also maintained that women made up about
two of every three part-time employees in the Management, Professional, and
Related Occupations, the Service Occupations, and the Sales and Office
Occupations. By contrast, male part-timers made up the majority of the part-time
workforce in the Natural Resources, Construction, and Maintenance Occupations
and the Production, Transportation, and Material Moving Occupations.
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Part-Time Faculty in Higher Education
In his monograph detailing the history of part-time faculty in higher
education, Jacobs (1998) traced the tradition of part-timers back to the Middle
Ages, to a time when priest-scholars were sent to universities to pursue their
scholarly interests and to expand their experiences. Building on this practice,
American colleges and universities designated “visiting” status to ministers and
scholars from other institutions; then further expanded the tradition by inviting
practitioners into classrooms as part-time clinical faculty whenever medical or
other professional schools were added to college campuses. Before long,
postsecondary institutions opened their campuses to public officials and individuals
with unique talents as adjunct faculty members (10). In spite of the continued
expansion of part-timers, institutional use remained judicious, as adjuncts were
used only as temporary solutions to tenured-faculty shortages (Bricault, 1998), to
provide a supply of individuals with unique abilities and achievements to
supplement full-time faculty (Jacobs, 1998), or to bring expertise that would keep
colleges and universities at the forefront in the creation of new knowledge or
technologies (Wyles, 1998). All the while, full-time professors continued to
dominate faculty appointments, as through the 1970s, they accounted for all but
about 22 percent of the total faculty (Charfauros & Tierney, 1999).
However, the decades following the 1970s were periods of transformation,
as postsecondary institutions began their increased reliance on part-time faculty.
Describing the growth of part-timers in higher education, Anderson (2002) pointed
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out there were approximately 700,000 instructional faculty members in 1981 but by
1999, the numbers had increased to about 1,000,000; with the most significant
growth taking place in part-time faculty (10). Coinciding with the increase of
instructional was the growth of part-timers; recent estimates put the number of
adjunct faculty at about 400,000 (6) or about 45 to 46 percent of the total
instructional faculty in higher education (Charfauros & Tierney, 1999,141). A
closer inspection of employment trends has revealed that faculty hiring between
1981 and 1987 was mainly of full-time professors (70 percent of 90,000 new
faculty members); by contrast, the second round of faculty hiring during the late
1980s and through the 1990s consisted almost entirely of part-timers, 82 percent of
120,000 new faculty hires (Anderson, 2002, 11). There have also been indications
this expansion of “mobile and inexpensive labor” Clark (1997, 35) has not run its
course; instead this segment of postsecondary faculty may grow even larger if
Tierney’s (2003) prediction holds true— that by the year 2027 full-time tenure-track
faculty might make up only about 20 percent of all postsecondary institutions
except for the top fifty universities (2).
Faculty characteristics
Using the NSOPF:99, Anderson (2002) reported that the average age of
part-time faculty (48 years old) was slightly younger than the average age of full
time faculty (50 years old). Demographic data also revealed that the largest group
of part-timers was between the ages of 45 to 49 with the second largest group
between the ages of 50 to 54 years old (15). Moreover, in a comparison of recent
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demographic data (from the NSOPF:99) with the previous NSOPF:88 dataset a
slight “graying” of the faculty population over the past 11 years has occurred; with
the earlier dataset revealing the mean ages of part-time faculty and full-time faculty
as 45 years and 48 years of age, respectively (Gappa & Leslie, 1993, 24).
White faculty members continued to make up the overwhelming majority of
faculty, accounting for almost 85 percent of full-time and 88 percent of part-time
faculty. This group was followed by Black, non-Hispanic faculty (4.5 %) and the
group of Hispanic faculty (3.7 %) (Anderson, 2002,15). The lack of faculty
diversification has prompted calls for more minority faculty members as a way of
enriching programs by bringing diverse perspectives to college campuses
(Anderson, 2002; Gappa & Leslie, 1993).
In a comparison of educational attainment levels between faculty groups,
Anderson (2002) reported that 18 percent of part-time faculty had obtained
doctorates as compared with almost 70 percent of full-time professors. The largest
difference between the faculty groups occurred at four-year institutions where 36
percent of part-timers had received their doctorates as opposed to almost three out
of every four full-timer. By comparison, the disparity was not as large at two-year
institutions, as Benjamin (1998) found that 19.0 percent of full-time faculty had
received doctorates or professional degrees as compared to 13.5 percent of part-
timers receiving like degrees (49). It is probably this type of favorable comparison
that led community college supporters to suggest that the slightly lower academic
levels achieved by adjunct faculty members at two-year institutions are not
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significant enough to raise clear concerns about differences in “quality” (Leslie &
Gappa, 1993, 61).
Male faculty members, according to Antony and Valadez (2002) have made
up the majority of both full-time faculty and part-time faculty in higher education.
Based on data from the NSOPF:93 (N = 20,300), the researchers found that males
made up 57.5 percent of full-time faculty and 52.6 percent of part-time faculty
while females made up 42.5 percent and 47.4 percent, full- and part-time,
respectively (45). However, even though females were not the majority in either
category, women were disproportionately more likely to work part-time (55.1 %)
than full-time (44.9 %); just opposite for male faculty members (45.1 % part-time
to 55.9 % full-time) (Jacobs, 2004; Anderson, 2002, 15). Two reasons for the
higher number of women employed part-time, according to Anderson, (2002),
could be that institutions would rather hire women for part-time rather than full
time positions or that women could just have a preference for part-time work (14).
Other reasons for the larger numbers of women employed part-time could be that
women have a greater preference for part-time work and or that the higher
likelihood of family obligations would result in higher opportunity costs than that
incurred by male part-timers (Toutkoushian & Bellas, 2003, 180). The researchers
also evaluated two sets of logistic regression models to find, after controlling for
other factors, that women were six percent more likely than men to prefer part-time
work, that married women were more likely to work part-time than married men,
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and that faculty members with dependents were also more likely to work part-time
(183).
Faculty have diverse reasons for seeking part-time work such as family,
personal, or professional considerations (van Rijswijk, Bekker, & Rutte, 2004;
Gappa & Leslie, 1993). As an example, part-timers may have a desire to facilitate
their work-family balance, working part-time when either experiencing too much
work-family interference or else to intentionally prevent occurrences of work-
family interference. They may also pursue part-time employment because of an
inability to find a full-time job, health problems, or a desire for more leisure time
(van Rijswijk, Bekker, & Rutte, 2004, 287). Moreover, Gappa & Leslie (1993)
have also reported that employees may work part-time while starting a family, as a
way to enhance their reputations at a particular institution in the hopes of
improving their chances of obtaining full-time employment, or when they desire
the freedom to work on academic or professional training (21).
Benefits of utilizing part-timers
As postsecondary institutions face the dilemma of increased student
enrollments and external pressures to keep tuitions affordable, they have struggled
to identify new revenue sources (Ehrenberg, 2003) and for many, the solution has
been to increase the numbers of part-time faculty (Lagenberg, 1998, 41). Adjunct
faculty are generally employed because of two major benefits: economic reasons,
as part-timers are cheaper than full-time professors or else to raise profit levels
(Grusin & Reed, 1994; Jacobs, 1998; Rhoades, 1996; Conway & Briner, 2002;
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Gappa & Leslie, 1993); or because of flexibility, as illustrated by the fact that
employers can add or subtract employees in response to changing productivity or
business conditions (Kraimer, Wayne, Liden, & Sparrowe, 2005; Rijswijk, Bekker,
& Rutte, 2004; Milner & Pinder, 2001; Conway & Briner, 2002; Rosendaal, 2003;
Matusik & Hill, 1998). Tertiary benefits associated with the employment of part-
timers include assisting institutional administrators diversify their institutions,
expanding curriculums by experimenting with new program offerings, responding
to changing community needs, or meeting instructional demands while still
maintaining fiscal integrity (Antony & Valadez, 2002; Gaddy, 1998; Lankard,
1993)
As an example of economic benefits part-timers could bring to an
institution, Shakeshaft (2002) described how utilizing adjuncts instead of full-time
faculty would result in significant cost savings. After comparing the income and
costs of three graduate education programs on Long Island; two of which used
adjuncts exclusively and one program which used predominately full-time faculty,
the author concluded that adjuncts were about one-eighth as expensive as full-time
professors (using a stipend of $2,500 per course for an adjunct and an average
salary of $75,000 plus fringe benefits for a full-time faculty). Thus, staffing
programs with part-timers would result in cost savings to the institution of between
$4 million and $5 million (28). In a second example, Anderson (2002) evinced
how utilizing adjuncts would significantly reduce costs at an educational institution
because of the differences in the annual average salary of full- and part-time faculty
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($41,500 to $11,500, respectively) (18). Put another way, he posited that
instructional savings of about $5,300 per course could be realized since the cost of
full-time faculty to teach a course was approximately $7,800 while the cost for a
part-time faculty member was $2,200 (19).
Job Satisfaction
Within academe, part-timers have sometimes been characterized as
“invisible,” “faceless,” and “freeway flyers” who patch together a living by
commuting from one institution to another (Grubb, 1999). In addition, these
faculty members often lack offices, phones, secretarial support (Grubb, 1999;
Kuchera & Miller, 1988), are often excluded from campus events and department
meetings (Bach, 1999), do not generally have the job security enjoyed by faculty
with tenure (Toutkoushian & Bellas, 2003), and most receive substandard pay and
benefits (AFT, 2003). However, in spite of dysphemistic references by full-time
professors and the lack of typical benefits, adjuncts have generally reported similar
overall job satisfaction levels with their full-time counterparts (Toutkoushian &
Bellas, 2003; Thorsteinson, 2003; Cleary, 2002; Steffy & Jones, 1990); surveys
have found part-timers are generally more satisfied than full-timers (Antony &
Valadez, 2002; Leslie & Gappa, 2002); and part-time employees respond to
rewards and punishments in the same manner as full-time employees (Conway &
Briner, 2002).
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Recently, Cleary (2002) examined the NSOPF:99 dataset and found that
more than four out of every five full- and part-time faculty member reported
satisfaction with their job and that part-timers were more likely to be very satisfied
with 11 of the 18 job categories. Study data also revealed that the two largest
discrepancies in satisfaction between the faculty groups occurred when about one-
half (51 %) of part-time faculty reported they were very satisfied with their
workload while only 29 percent of full-timers provided the same response and
when 59 percent of part-timers reported they were very satisfied with the freedom
to do outside consulting while only 39 percent of full-timers reported they were
very satisfied (4).
Another study comparing satisfaction of part-time and full-time faculty was
conducted by Antony and Valadez (2002) who examined a final sample of full- and
part-time faculty in the NSOPF:92 (N = 20,300) and reported that, overall, part-
time faculty members were significantly more satisfied with their jobs than full
time faculty. Survey findings also revealed a higher number of part-time faculty
members who reported they would reenter the academic profession than full-time
faculty (65 % to 58.9 %). In addition, when describing their research methodology,
the researchers claimed their study design was developed to overcome criticism of
previous satisfaction studies; that studies typically employed only a single variable;
thereby, ignoring the complexities of job satisfaction. As such, they developed
three constructs to measure satisfaction: the first measured faculty satisfaction with
their authority to develop course content and to work independently (Cronbach
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scale score of 0.95); the second construct, satisfaction with students, measured
satisfaction with the time available to advise students and with the quality of
students and had a scale score of 0.67; and the final construct, satisfaction with
demands and rewards, measured how satisfied faculty were with their workloads,
job security, and opportunities for advancement, pay, or benefits and had a scale
score of 0.78 (44). Finally, Feldman & Tumley (2001) conducted a study of 105
adjuncts at a large state university to analyze aspects of the job part-timers found
the most and least satisfying and whether career stage had an impact on job
satisfaction. They found that scheduling flexibility was the main incentive for
employees choosing to work part-time. In addition, respondents reported the
highest levels of satisfaction were with the work itself and the opportunities for
employees to develop relationships with other part-timers. Study results also
revealed experience had a positive correlation with job attitudes and work
behaviors and the researchers speculated this occurred because experienced faculty
were probably more committed to their profession or because low pay and job
security were less problematic for them (12).
Collective Bargaining
Unionization was opened to all employees in the 1960s and 1970s by
enabling legislation or state labor board rules (Rhoades & Rhoads, 2002) and
according to Cohen and Brawer (2003) “. . . swept into higher education on the
coattails of legislation authorizing public employees to negotiate” (132). While
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major concerns were raised that faculty would leave “institution-wide or system-
wide governing bodies” (Begin, 1974), there has been no evidence that unions have
replaced traditional postsecondary organizations such as academic senates and
faculty councils (Gellman & Nightingale, 1998). Moreover, the importance of
collective bargaining agreements in higher education has been described as the
means by which faculty members legalize the principles of shared governance and
due process between the institution and faculty, through which faculty gain legal
standing to enforce provisions contained in faculty handbooks, and the means
through which faculty require the university to negotiate salary and benefits with
faculty representatives (38).
However, a recent examination of collective bargaining in higher education
found that collective bargaining has not received an overwhelming response in
postsecondary education. In the nation’s four-year colleges and universities, only
about 40 percent of full-time instructional staff belong to a collective bargaining
unit; however, the reception at community colleges has been more positive, as 62
percent of full-time faculty at two-year institutions are members of a collective
bargaining unit (Euben & Hustoles, 2001). However, even at two-year institutions,
the response has not been universal. While popular with full-time faculty at
community colleges, only about 17 percent of adjuncts at two-year institutions
belong to unions (Leslie & Gappa, 2002). This low membership rate, according to
Cohen and Brawer (2003), might be traced to the fact that union membership is
only offered to adjuncts who carry at least a half-time teaching load or have
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contracts for a period longer than one term. Other suggestions for the lack of
participation have been these employees have primary jobs elsewhere, they have
few guarantees of institutional job security, or that adjuncts just do not see the
utility in union membership since their issues are addressed in only 39 percent of
collective bargaining contracts (Rhoades, 1996, in Leslie & Gappa, 2000, 63).
One of the larger research studies on collective bargaining in postsecondary
education was conducted by Rhoades (1996); the study examined 183 collective
bargaining agreements and out of those agreements, part-time faculty members
were discussed in 118 agreements. In one section of his analysis, Rhoades opined
that “Managerial flexibility is greatest when no conditions surrounding part-time
faculty are specified” (632). For support, he pointed out that only 43 of the 118
contracts contained policies for (re)hiring part-timers, 9 contracts contained
provisions enabling faculty to be involved in the hiring of faculty and 6 of 183
agreements dealt with releasing an adjunct faculty member. Moreover, Rhoades
also suggested that the importance placed on the personal aspects of part-time
employment appear clearly articulated by the fact that individual faculty benefits,
specifically sick leave, were addressed in nearly two-thirds of the contracts and
about one half of the agreements contain provisions for insurance benefits. On the
other hand, only 10 contracts provided for some sort of professional development,
8 discussed provisions of workspace, 14 required part-timers to hold office hours,
21 required faculty evaluations, 39 clearly spelled out faculty duties, while none
included part-time faculty in the academic decision-making process. Finally, part
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time teaching experience was not valued by institutions as type of experience was
generally not credited as professional experience in the pursuit of a full-time job.
Quality of Education
Part-time and non-tenured faculty make up more than 40 percent of the total
instructional faculty in higher education (Charfauros & Tierney, 1999); however,
they continue to be characterized as “migrant laborers” (Gappa & Leslie, 1993, 34)
or “freeway flyers” (Grubb, 1999, 332) who “come in, teach a class, and go home-
or more likely go to another campus to teach another course” (Tierney, 2003, 2).
Traveling from campus to campus to meet economic needs, according to Buck
(2001), make them more vulnerable to “quality-impairing” temptations such as
relying more on objective evaluations instead of writing assignments because of
time constraints (20). In addition, researchers have questioned how quality of
education cannot be negatively impacted when part-time faculty receive teaching
assignments close to the start of a semester, thereby, leaving them with little time to
prepare; when adjuncts are twice as likely as full-time faculty to report spending no
time with students outside of class on their most recent working day; or when part-
timers do not revise their syllabus or teaching objectives as often as full-time
faculty or else use generic rather than institution-specific syllabi (Schuetz, 2002,
41-42; Jacobs, 1998). Finally, a report that part-time faculty have been found to
utilize collaborative techniques, group activities and teamwork assignments one-
third as often as full-time faculty (Schuetz, 2002, 2) has been especially disturbing
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33
to administrators, especially at a time when institutions have implemented
programs encouraging the use of leamer-centered instructional methods;
recognized as important contributors to persistence and achievement by enhancing
students’ involvement in college (Cohen & Brawer, 2003, 181).
However, the literature also contains other examples disputing the notion
that part-time faculty are always associated with lower quality of education. In
their prominent publication, The Invisible Faculty: Improving the Status o f Part-
timers in Higher Education, Gappa & Leslie (1993) pointed out they did not
uncover any significant differences in the educational quality provided by either
full- or part-time faculty. Researchers also found that full- and part-time
instructional faculty had comparable teaching abilities (Sonners, 2000), were both
committed to teaching (Freedland, 1998), and both faculty groups received similar
teaching evaluations (Haeger, 1998). In addition, two recent articles addressing
pedagogical practices utilized by the faculty groups found both full- and part-time
faculty tended to use slightly over two-thirds of class time for lectures 43 percent of
class time, student discussions 15 percent of class time, and exams and quizzes 11
percent of class time (Leslie & Gappa, 2002, 64; Schuetz, 2002, 40). As such, the
debate over the impact of part-time faculty on quality of education continues to
rage; thus, it is still not clear whether part-time faculty have been making positive
contributions to academic outcomes or has the practice of hiring significant
numbers of adjuncts really threatened students’ quality of education?
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Experience Considerations
It would seem that there should generally be a positive relationship between
teacher experience and student achievement; as faculty gain teaching experience,
they would become more effective teachers; having learned what works and what
does not and how to teach difficult sections of the course (Blackburn & Lawrence,
1986, 273). However, the literature contains contrasting views (Centra, 2003;
Wenglinsky, 2002). Researchers supporting the notion of positive relationships
have included Goldhaber and Brewer (1997) who examined data from the National
Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS-88) and found that students taught
by more experienced teachers had higher test scores (507); Centra (2003) who
found that students learn less from first-year faculty; Greenwald, Hedges, & Laine
(1996) who found that resource variables that describe the quality of teachers
(teacher ability, teacher education have strong relationship with student
achievement (384); and finally, Darling-Hammond (2004), when writing about the
educational environment, albeit at K-12 institutions, argued that fewer experienced
teachers weaken the “collective knowledge” of an institution. When there is a
smaller pool of veteran teachers, there will be fewer resources for novices to rely
on and, it would be almost impossible for a small group of veterans to carry the
load for an entire faculty (1944). Finally, Torff (2003) examined the practices of
60 secondary-level social studies teachers; 20 considered expert teachers, 20
experienced teachers (with about 10 years of experience) and 20 novice teachers
(with no teaching experience) to find out whether experience and in-service
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35
training contributed to teaching performance. Using the use of higher order
thinking skills (HOTS) in the classroom as the major measure to evaluate teaching
performance, the study found that experienced teachers practiced more HOTS in
their classrooms than inexperienced teachers and that as teachers gained experience
and completed in-service training, their use of HOTS increased (568).
By contrast, researchers (Blackburn & Lawrence, 1986) have argued that
viewing the relationship between teaching experience and classroom performance
through sociological theory would predict a negative correlation between the
variables. Their assumption is based on the fact that unsatisfactory teaching may
be punished, but quality teaching is not specifically rewarded. Also, that teaching
effectiveness does not typically appear as one of the critical variables on the merit
pay scale for faculty (273). Also finding no strong evidence that teacher experience
had a positive effect on student achievement, Hanushek (1986) examined 109
studies which contained teacher experience as a production function (1162) and
concluded that only 30 percent of the studies contained a statistically significant
positive relationship between experience and achievement, while 6 percent
reflected a statistically significant negative relationship, and 63 percent of the
studies found no statistically significant relationship (1161). In a more recent
study, Hanushek (1997) reviewed 90 publications which contained 377 separate
production function estimates and found that 29 percent of the studies found a
positive and statistically significant relationship between teacher education and
student performance; on the other hand, that means that 71 percent of the studies
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36
found a statistically significant negative relationship (5 %), or a relationship which
did not reach statistical significance (144). And finally, Wenglinsky’s (2002) study
of 7,146 eighth grade students who took the 1996 National Assessment of
Education Progress (NAEP) found no significant relationship between teacher
experience and student achievement.
Expanding the parameters of research to the medical community has also
provided confirmation of negative correlations between experience and
performance. After reviewing 59 articles evaluating the relationship of experience
and physician experience, Choudhry, Fletcher, and Soumerai (2005) found the
existence of a negative relationship; that clinical experience, which would seem to
enhance knowledge and skill, did not lead to better patient care. While
acknowledging the variability of the studies prevented formal meta-analytical
techniques, the authors, nonetheless, reported that approximately 72 percent of the
evaluations demonstrated a negative association or a partial negative association
between increasing experience and performance (261). The authors also examined
seven studies which specifically studied the relationship between number of years
in practice and actual health outcomes. After controlling for patients’ probability
of death, hospital location and practice environment, physician specialty, board
certification, and patient load, study findings revealed a 0.5 percent (SE = 0.27
percent) increase in mortality for every year the physician had graduated from
medical school (263). In their conclusion, Choudhry, Fletcher, and Soumerai noted
their study suggested that physicians who had been in practice for more years and
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older physicians may have poorer patient outcomes because they possessed less
factual knowledge (269). The researchers further maintained that many
experienced physicians have been exempt from recertification requirements which
apply to younger physicians; however study results suggested that policies that
ensure all physicians are kept up-to-date on newer medical strategies or that require
demonstration of continued competence should be considered. As an example, the
policy which currently limits recertification to physicians who received the
American Board of Internal Medicine certification in or after 1990 could be
expanded to apply to all physicians, regardless of certification date (270). Another
study by Hartz, Kuhn, and Pulido (1999) examined data from three states to
determine whether associations existed between experience and physician
performance (measured by mortality rate) or medical school attended, of coronary
artery bypass (CABG) surgeons. While finding no correlation between
performance and the prestige of the medical school, residency, or fellowship
program, the researchers did find a significant positive relationship between
experience and mortality rates. They also suggested that this finding could possibly
be attributed to two reasons: that younger physicians were better trained in the
newer and most effective surgical techniques; or that clinical skills diminish with
age for some physicians (101). Finally, Epstein, Gonzales, Weinfurt, Boekeloo,
Yuan, & Chase (2001) randomly surveyed 525 psychiatrists listed in the American
Psychiatric Association and found a statistically significant negative association
between the physician’s experience and the appropriate diagnosis (485, 487). They
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suggested that the negative correlation could have occurred because older
psychiatrists may have been less familiar with the most current reference materials
(487).
Faculty age
According to Blackburn and Lawrence (1986), utilizing the psychological
and sociological lens to examine the impact of age on performance would result in
different results. Through the sociological lens, the authors predicted a decline in
teaching performance as faculty grew older; institutions may punish unsatisfactory
teaching, but there are normally few rewards for exemplary teaching performance
(273). From psychological theory, Blackburn and Lawrence have suggested that
teaching effectiveness could have contrasting results. As an example, if essential
intelligence and related attributes would hold over the career of a faculty member,
improved teaching effectiveness should occur with the passage of time. However,
the other side of psychological theory illustrates an older professor who is less
willing to try new techniques or contemporary equipment, thus raising questions
about the teaching effectiveness of the aged faculty member (273). This view of
the inflexible “old timer” has been supported by Choudhry, Fletcher, & Soumerai
(2005) who reported that older physicians may have less familiarity with new
strategies (evidence-based medicine and quality assurance techniques such as
disease management and performance evaluation) and may not be as willing as
younger physicians to employ medical advancements (270).
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In another study examining the relationship of faculty age and job
satisfaction, Feldman and Tumley (2001) found that job satisfaction and
professional commitment were higher among faculty age 50-plus (late-career
faculty) than among younger (faculty in their 20s) or mid-career faculty members
who are in their 30s and 40s (9). Their findings also indicated that late-career
adjunct faculty members demonstrated more positive job attitudes, were most apt to
exhibit the most desirable work-related behaviors and were most satisfied with their
part-time employment when they were compared with early- or mid-career part-
timers. While the authors concluded that late-career adjuncts reacted most
positively to their standing as a part-time faculty member, either because of their
longer commitment to their profession or because low pay and the lack of job
security are not critical issues at this stage of their careers (3), these positive
attributes could also translate to more effective teaching in the classroom. Finally,
in a study solely of full-time faculty members at two-year institutions, Bayer &
Braxton (1998) found that younger faculty members were stronger advocates of the
prescription that the grades faculty used to evaluate student academic performance
should be fair and according to merit (199).
Student Evaluations of Teachings (SET)
Student evaluations of teaching (SET) have been used extensively in higher
education as a major component in the evaluation of teaching effectiveness
(Stapleton & Murkison, 2001; Stack, 2000; Wachtel, 1998; Barry & Thompson,
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40
1997). Researchers have suggested fewer topics in higher education have been
studied as extensively over such a prolonged period of time (Eiszler, 2002;
Schmelkin, Spencer, & Gellman, 1997; England, Hutchings, McKeachie, 1996); a
suggestion confirmed by Centra (2003) who estimated there are over 2,000
references in the ERIC system (495). According to Simpson and Siguaw (2000),
SETs should be student evaluations that serve as formative measures to provide
feedback to faculty in order to assist them improve teaching effectiveness (199);
however, there have been concerns that SETs have become summative faculty
evaluations which institutions rely on as the sole measure to make major personnel
decisions such as hiring, firing, promotion, tenure, and merit pay (Crumbley &
Fliedner, 2002, 213; Lersch & Greek, 2001, 284). As a result, the importance on
SETs as formative evaluations for faculty members or for summative purposes by
postsecondary institutions have led to suggestions that some faculty members could
incorporate practices specifically designed to “beat the system” (Simpson &
Siguaw, 2000, 200); usually by awarding high grades, assigning less course work
or lowering grading standards in an attempt to win student approval (Crumbley &
Fliedner, 2002; Lersch & Greek, 2001; Krautmann & Sander, 1999). An example
of this “quid pro quo” was provided by Lersch and Greek (2001) who evaluated the
SETs submitted by 3,583 undergraduate students in a criminal justice program at a
four-year institution and found that instructors who awarded the highest grades
were also found to receive the highest evaluations (294). In a further finding, the
researchers also discovered that adjunct faculty members were given the highest
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41
evaluations; that even after controlling for grades, part-time faculty had
significantly higher evaluations as compared to all other faculty categories (292-
293).
However, the literature also contains contrasting views; that faculty will not
likely receive higher student evaluations by giving inflated grades and assigning
less course work (Centra, 2003, 516) or that the widespread belief that teaching
easy, slow-paced courses that do not challenge the student will result in higher
student evaluations is a mistake (Marsh, 2001). For example, Centra (2003)
analyzed SETs from students enrolled in approximately 55,000 classes and found
that in business, social science and natural science courses, grades were generally
unrelated to student evaluations (511-512).
To receive higher SETs, Marsh (2001) examined SET surveys from 594
classes and suggested that faculty who wanted to improve their SET should
increase the number of good hours (hours students spent on coursework that were
deemed valuable) and reduce bad hours (total hours minus good hours) (188). He
also pointed out the existence of a widespread, but mistaken belief that faculty
could improve their SET scores by teaching easy, slow-paced courses that require
little work and do not challenge students (206).
Student Academic Outcomes
According to Ellinger, Wright, & Hirlinger (1995), there are numerous
surrogates of student learning or student achievement in the literature; with the
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favorite being standard achievement scores (Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy, 2000; Bolge,
1995). This proxy has enjoyed tremendous popularity because it has allowed for
simple student comparisons with national or regional standards (Banta, 1999);
however, the author has also cautioned that ease of comparison could be
transcended by the concern that standardized tests may not adequately match the
learning expectations described in the course syllabus (15). Moreover Jones (2004)
argued from a constructivist view that a large-scale standardized test is not, by
itself, sufficient to measure student achievement; it would be difficult to assess
knowledge which is constructed through a social and cultural process with a test
that is developed on the belief that knowledge exists apart from culture and context.
Thus, he has contended that the evaluation of student learning in the classroom can
only be made by people; preferably by those who know the lesson objectives and
the one that knows the student best in his or her own context (586).
Other substitutes to measure student academic or learning outcomes have
been the receipt of a postsecondary degree or certification (Voorhees, 1997),
student grade point average (Betts & Morell, 1999; Zahn & Schramm, 1992), and
end-of-course grades, both class average and by individual student (Davis, Belcher,
& McKitterick, 1986; McArthur, 1999; Garavalia & Gredler, 2002; Stack, 2000;
Fedler, 1989; Sonner, 2000; Hallock, Satava, & LeSage, 2003). Most important for
this study is the application of course grades as a proxy to evaluate student
academic outcomes. Grades, according to Grove & Wasserman (2004) and
O’Connor (2001) have been used as convenient shorthand by faculty members to
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43
evaluate student performance in a particular course at the end of a specified period
of time. Put another way, grades are simply a faculty member’s subjective
assessment of a student’s performance relative to the teacher’s stated objectives;
thus, standards may not be uniform across faculty members (Nagle, 1998, 41).
Furthermore, grades, despite often criticized as overly subjective and gaining
widespread acceptance less than 100 years ago, had by the year 2003, been defined
by most Americans as having significant meaning (St. Maurice & Yudchitz, 2003,
4; Vickers, 2000). Thus, as McArthur (1999) explained, “. . . the fact is all faculty
members have to judge students and the vehicle they use is the grading system”
(67).
In studies examining the grading patterns of full- and part-time faculty, the
results have been mixed. In one study (McArthur, 1999) examining grading
patterns in Humanities courses at a small two-year institution, researchers found
that over the course of three semesters part-time faculty members awarded students
substantially more grades of “A” than full-timers. Further analysis revealed that
part-time male professors awarded grades of “A” or “B”, 69 percent of the time
while female professors awarded grades of “A” or “B”, 57 percent of the time,
indicating more research on gender is required. Finally, while part-time faculty did
not vary significantly in the amount of “A” and “B” grades given to students
enrolled in day or evening classes, full-time faculty awarded higher grades to day
students as compared to students enrolled in evening classes (McArthur, 1999). In
a second study, this time examining grades in business classes at a small public
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university where approximately 70 percent of the classes are taught by adjuncts,
Sonner (2000) found that the average class grade awarded by adjuncts (2.8 average
class grade) was slightly, but significantly, higher than the grades awarded by full
time faculty (2.6 average class grade). Moreover, even after controlling for class
size, subject, and class level, there was still a statistically significant difference in
the awarded grades (F = 23.07), p < .000 (p. 6-7).
The Community College
Community colleges’ lower tuition and open-admission policies have
broadened access to postsecondary education (Grubb, 1999) so that almost one-half
of all the undergraduates attending public colleges and universities enroll in two-
year institutions (Callan, 1997). As a result, there are some who suggest that this
prominent institution, long referred to as open access institutions which have
expanded postsecondary access for millions of students who would not otherwise
have had the opportunity to participate (Cohen, 2001), is finally receiving the
attention that it deserves (Dougherty, 2002); however, there are also scholars that
continue to debate its purpose and in some cases, even its existence (Shaw &
London, 2001). Community college faculty are faced with many challenges, but
none more difficult than tailoring instructional pedagogy to a diverse student
population; individuals from different ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, and
academic backgrounds (Murray, 1999).
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The Value of a College Education
The nation’s changing society has been placing increasing value on the
necessity of a college education (Day & McCabe, 1997). Human capital theory
provides the conceptual framework through which some researchers explain how
economic benefits can be influenced from students’ investment in education
(Becker, 1964, 1975, 1993, in Sanchez, Laanan, & Wiseley (1999, 89). When
forecasting workforce requirements, Camevale (1999), wrote that: “More than
two-thirds of the jobs being created in the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S.
economy . . . now require at least some college . . . meanwhile, the number of jobs
. .. that do not require a college education is falling” (Camevale, 1999). Moreover,
research has also suggested a positive correlation with educational attainment and
future earnings; that increased college will increase earnings. As an example, the
Survey of Income and Program (SIPP) national dataset disclosed general effects
whereby students with college degrees had significantly higher earnings than
individuals with only a high school education; and that individuals with associates
degrees earn more than those with only a high school education but less than
workers with a baccalaureate degree. In addition, dissimilarity in the earnings of
men and women with associate degrees also exists; men with associate degrees
earned 18 percent more than male high school graduates while women with
associate degrees earned 23 percent more than their high school counterparts
(Grubb, 1997).
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These results were similar to a study by (Sanchez et al., 1999), who used
California unemployment insurance records and California community college
records to conclude, that students who completed more college would . increase
the likelihood of experiencing greater gains in their post-college earnings” (107-
108). Finally, Day and Newburger (2002) reported that the Census Bureau, using
self-reported data from the 2000 census, quantified salary differences over an
adult's working life: individuals with bachelor’s degrees earned about $2.1 million,
those with associate’s degrees earned about $1.6 million, and individuals that began
work with a high school diploma earned an average of $1.2 million (4).
In addition to salary advantages, people with a college education enjoy
other benefits. By utilizing the framework of social mobility, researchers have
posited that higher education is a “great equalizer . . . of socioeconomic
circumstances” (Payne & Lyman, 1996, 4) and is one of the few ways people of
color and members of the lower working class can raise their socioeconomic status
(Atkinson, 2001), enter the mainstream, and break the cycle of poverty and welfare
(Cohen & Brawer, 2003). Other scholars have explained that there is a positive
correlation between a college education and an individual’s civic contributions
(Astin, 1998). In a recent interview, Astin said for people “. . . to become
productive and contributing citizens, their degree of educational development is the
single most powerful factor . . . more important than their race or their social status
or any other thing. How much education a people have . . . is powerfully related to
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whether they become . . . predators as opposed to productive and contributing
members of society” (Astin, 2000, 4).
Historical Context of the Community College
A community college has been defined as: . . any institution regionally
accredited to award the associate in arts or the associate in science as its highest
degree” (Cohen & Brawer, 2003, 5). Located in every state (Cohen, 2001) their
primary goal is to provide the best and most economical form of education (Carlan
& Byxbe, 2000). These colleges have been organized to serve almost one-half of
all the undergraduates attending public colleges and universities in America
(Callan, 1997; Cohen & Brawer, 2003) and their primary missions have been to
provide occupational programs, the first two years of baccalaureate studies, basic
skills development, and a variety of non-credit courses (Cohen, 2001).
Any discussion on the contributions of the nation’s community colleges has
to center on their expansion of postsecondary access for millions of students who
would not otherwise have had the opportunity to participate (Cohen, 2001, 4).
While many prospective students beginning their college education have numerous
enrollment alternatives (Hilmer, 1997), there are learners who have limited
financial means or language difficulties (Walker, 2001), are people of color (Shaw
& London, 2001), have personal or family backgrounds that hinder academic
success (Ward, 2001), have language difficulties (Walker, 2001), or have neither
earned the grades nor the test scores that would admit them to four-year institutions
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(Grubb, 1999; Walker, 2001). For these students .. the choice is not between the
community college and a senior residential institution; it is between the community
college and nothing” (Cohen & Brawer, 2003, 53).
Growth of Community Colleges
The first two-year institutions were established in the early 1900s (Cohen &
Brawer, 2003) as neighborhood schools (Cohen, 2001) and these institutions were
commonly referred to as junior colleges (Cohen & Brawer, 2003; Joliet, 2003).
Early junior colleges were expected to offer courses that were “. . . of strictly
collegiate grade” (Bogue, 1950, xvii, in Cohen & Brawer, 2003, 4) and for many
years, they remained extensions of high schools. Moreover, this bond has never
been fully severed; for in spite of their evolution over the past 40 years, such that
funding and governance has moved from the local to the state level, today’s
community colleges continue to reflect their early lower-school roots with their
open access policies, their receipt of funding based on student attendance, the fact
that their faculty qualifications and working requirements are dissimilar from
faculty at four-year institutions, and the variety of their curriculum (Cohen, 2001).
Through the 1920s, enrollments at junior colleges remained low and it
wasn’t until the 1930s, when these institutions began providing job training
programs as a way to ease unemployment, did enrollments begin to slowly rise.
This slow growth continued through the 1950s and this rate remained stable until
the mid-1960s; when enrollments began to spike as baby boomers started to pursue
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a college education. In the next two decades, a clear change from the stable growth
was evident as a vertical trajectory better described enrollment patterns. Student
attendance at community colleges rose from approximately one million in 1965 to
2.2 million in 1970 and to 4.3 million by 1980 (Kasper, 2003). However, by the
1980s, the growth rate had slowed somewhat, although continuing to register 31
percent through the year 2000. Thus, the student population at two-year
institutions went from slightly over 4 million students in 1980 to today’s 5.9
million students (NCES, 2002).
Student Characteristics
According to Cohen & Brawer (2003) two words sum up students in
community colleges: “number and variety” (37). The numbers are significant as
almost one-half of all undergraduates attending public postsecondary institutions
are enrolled in community colleges (Grubb, 2002; Kasper, 2003; NCES, 2002).
Moreover, compared to their counterparts at four-year institutions, students at
community colleges are more likely to be women, members of a minority group,
more likely to be working and taking care of their family, and probably the first
person in their family to attend college (Bragg, 2001, 102). In addressing the
variety of students attending community colleges, Cohen (2003) developed a
typology that permits the examination of these learners from different frameworks:
To the psychologist: Community college students are pragmatic,
little concerned with learning for its own sake; are not self-directed
or self-motivated; and need to be instructed.
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To the sociologist: Community college students are struggling to
escape from their lower-class backgrounds; some do, but many are
inhibited by a bias against leaving family and friends that a move
in class would engender.
To the economist: Community college students are from low-
income families and pay more in the form of forgone earnings as a
percentage of total family income than their counterparts from
higher-income groups; a differential that more than offsets the
savings gained by attending a low-tuition institution.
To the political scientist: Community college students are given
short shrift because the institutions are funded at a lower per capita
level than universities; hence, students do not have equivalent
libraries, laboratories, or faculty-student ratios available to them
(54).
Students enrolled in community colleges are generally older than students
attending four-year institutions. Averaging 29 years of age (Callan, 1997)
approximately 41 percent of community college students are age 21 or younger
while almost one-fourth are age 35 or older. In contrast, about one-half of all
students attending four-year institutions are age 21 or younger and only about 13
percent of students are age 35 or older (NCES, 2002). Between 1980 and 2000, the
number of female college students enrolled in postsecondary education grew by 38
percent while the growth rate for males only increased by 14 percent. In a closer
inspection of student enrollments during that timeframe, it is interesting to note that
female enrollments grew by 21 percent from 1980 through 1990 but slowed to only
14 percent between 1990 and 2000 (NCES, 2002).
In their infancy, community colleges were established to fulfill a transfer
function; thus, student populations were not especially diverse as traditional-aged,
white, and college-bound students filled the classrooms. However, as time passed,
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the missions of these institutions have expanded so today’s community colleges
provide general education equivalent-courses to freshmen and sophomores,
vocational or occupational education, and non-credit or other community services
(Callan, 1997). The result of this multiplicity of programs has caused student
populations become much more diverse (Bragg, 2001). So much so, in fact, that
about one-half of all minority students in higher education attend a community
college; specifically, 45 percent of African-American students, 52 percent of
Hispanic students, and 56 percent of Native Americans (Callan, 1997, 99).
Furthermore, community college student enrollments tend to mirror the ethnic
make-up of the surrounding community (Cohen & Brawer, 2003); as an example,
states with largest minority enrollments, California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, and
New York (NCES, 2002) are also the same states with the largest minority
populations (Census, 2000).
Community College Faculty
Faculty delivering instructions in community colleges are more likely to be
part-time than full-time professors (Callan, 1997). Within the past two-to-three
decades increasing student enrollments and the reduction in state-government
appropriations have resulted in a significant shift in higher education from full-time
professors to part-time faculty (Schuster, 2003; Sheldon, 2003, Antony & Valadez,
2002; McArthur, 1999) and nowhere has this trend been more pronounced than in
two-year institutions (Toutkoushian & Bellas, 2003). The popularity of these
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52
faculty members can be underscored by the significance of their numbers; from
about 52 percent of the faculty in 1988 to almost 64 percent, today (Akroyd, Jaeger,
Jackowski, & Jones, 2004; Cohen & Brawer, 2003).
While making up the majority of two-year faculty, research has not always
been kind on part-timers; the literature has conflicting findings on the ability of
adjuncts to enhance students’ learning. On the one hand, there is evidence that
part-time faculty at two-year institutions provide the same quality of education as
that offered by their full-time counterparts (Roueche et al., 1996); that adjuncts are
younger and are more aware of emerging trends in their fields (Gappa & Leslie,
1993), have comparable teaching abilities with their full-time peers (Sonner, 2000),
and there are generally no differences between their teaching methods, as both
faculty groups use about two-thirds of the classroom time on lecture, student
discussions, and exams (Leslie & Gappa, 2002). Substantiation has been provided
by an examination of the learning differences of 100 randomly-selected students
enrolled in remedial mathematics courses (fifty in the group taught by full-time
faculty and fifty in the group taught by part-timers) at a New Jersey community
college which did not find any difference in the amount of learning attained by
students taught by either part- or full-time faculty (19). The study found that the
mean score for the group taught by full-timers 177.84 (SD = 4.19) was almost
equal to the mean score for the group taught by part-timers was 177.98 (SD = 3.51)
(Bolge, 1995, 18). The researcher did, however, acknowledge study limitations
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53
since the data was collected only from one college and from only remedial classes
(16).
By contrast, the literature also contains research that documents differences
in student educational outcomes in classes taught by full- and part-time faculty. As
an example, McArthur (1999) compared grading patterns of six full-time and
twelve part-time faculty members in general education courses during the spring
1995, 1996 and 1997 semesters. The study found that students were more likely to
receive a letter grade of “A” from a part-time faculty member than from a full-time
professor (73) and that part-time faculty awarded higher average grades (2.75 mean
grade) than their full-time counterparts (2.39 average grade) (70). The author has
suggested one possible reason for part-time faculty awarding higher grades: that
adjuncts have been “held hostage” to student evaluations and that their desire for a
good evaluation has been a strong influence on the grades awarded by part-time
faculty (74). Finally, the author examined whether faculty age had an impact on
grading patterns and found that age had no influence on grading patterns. In a
more recent study, Sonner (2000) compared the grades awarded by full- and part-
time faculty at a small public university over a two-year period. The study
examined a total of 7,610 grades awarded to students in every business class taught
over a two-year period and found that most of the letter grades were “A” or “B”
and less than 20 percent of the faculty awarded letter grades “C” or below. Final
results showed that the average grade awarded by adjuncts (2.8 average grade) was
small, but significantly higher than the average grade awarded by full-timers (2.6
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54
average grade). The author has suggested the most likely explanation for the higher
grades awarded by part-time faculty was their desire for better student evaluations;
since part-timers are employed on a term-by-term basis, they would be more likely
to award higher grades in return for higher student evaluations that would enhance
their opportunities to teach in the succeeding term (7).
The Community College Transfer Function
For many students who enroll in two-year institutions, the community
college is their only access to a baccalaureate degree (Grubb, 1991; Nora, 1993).
For two-year institutions, a successful transfer function provides them with an
academic legitimacy in postsecondary education (Ward, 2001). Unfortunately, the
performance of two-year institutions in facilitating the transfer and baccalaureate
attainment of their students has continued to come under fire. Critics argue that:
“.. . students entering community college receive 11 percent to 19 percent fewer
bachelor’s degrees and average one-eighth to one-fourth-year less higher education
than students of comparable background, ability and ambition entering four-year
institutions” (Dougherty, 1991, 314-315). Others researchers (Leigh & Gill, 2003)
have questioned how the transfer function can be rated as successful when almost
twice as many students drop out of community colleges than drop out from four-
year institutions. Moreover, they suggest that two-year institutions have restricted
the baccalaureate attainment of students (Leigh & Gill, 2003) as they have “.. .
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failed to provide lower-division baccalaureate preparation of equal quality to that of
four-year colleges” (Dougherty, 1991, 320).
However, a counter-argument has been posited by Grubb (1991) which has
focused on problems with the statistical methodology that has been traditionally
utilized by researchers. The author has maintained that measuring the effectiveness
of the transfer program has been difficult because samples used in transfer studies
have only been institution-specific or that studies have been based on cross-
sectional data, instead of the correct application of longitudinal data. As a result of
these methodological deficiencies, Grubb has suggested that this difficulty in
tracking students to more than a few institutions has resulted in a likely tendency to
undercount the number of transfer students.
Students transferring from two- to four-year institutions have been almost
all male, under the age of 25 (Surette, 2001, 155). In addition, more white students
transfer than black or Hispanic students, transfers are usually from families of
higher socioeconomic status, have higher high school GPAs, and in high school,
their high school courses were in the academic track rather than the general or
vocational tracks (Grubb, 1991, 201).
As for the effectiveness of the transfer function, conflicting results dot the
literature. The rosiest picture has been painted by Grubb (1991) who after
examining associate degree recipients found about 68 percent of those students
transferred to four-year institutions. Others have added that year-after-year,
approximately one-fourth of students who begin their education in two-year
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56
institutions eventually transfer to four-year colleges and universities (Cohen &
Brawer, 2003). By comparison, Dougherty (1992), relying on data from Brint &
Karabel (1989) and Pincus & Archer (1990), has suggested that only 15 percent of
students transfer from two- to four-year institutions (196).
When examining transfer rates using the National Longitudinal Study of the
High School Class of 1972 (NLS-72), Grubb (1991) and found a transfer rate of
28.7 percent. However, his examination of the High School and Beyond (HS&B)
data produced a transfer rate of 20.2 percent. Grubb explained that the transfer rate
differences could be attributed to the different timeframes of the studies— the NLS-
72 contained transfer data for seven years while the HS&B only contained data for
four years. In another study, Leigh and Gill (2003) analyzed the National
Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY) and computed a transfer rate of 38.6
percent. They suggested that, while their rate was considerably higher than all of
the other rates, the difference could be explained by the timeframes involved; that
by using the NLSY dataset, they identified a transfer student as one who attended a
two-year college and then attended a four-year institution at anytime throughout the
18-year period of the survey.
Moving beyond overall transfer rates, Surette (2001) conducted a study to
determine whether gender differences affected transfer rates. In an analysis of the
NLSY dataset, the researcher could not find any significant effects of transfer
differences between males and females. The results, however, also revealed that
having young children in the home negatively affected transfer rates for women
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more than for men. Also, for women who were married and had child-rearing
responsibilities, the negative effects were larger for females attending four-year
attendance than for females attending two-year institutions. In this concluding
remarks, the researcher suggested that based on the lack of statistical significance,
women and men might simply prefer different types of colleges.
Even after students are able to hurdle all of the obstacles at their two-year
institution, these transfer students arriving at four-year institutions encounter many
pitfalls that continue to hinder their persistence or performance. One of the major
obstacles facing transfer students is that the rigor and instruction they received at
community colleges may not measure-up to the preparation students received at
four-year institutions. To determine the validity of this statement, researchers
(Laband & Piette, 1995) compared the transcripts of 238 transfer students with the
transcripts of students who began their education at Florida State University.
While both categories of students had almost identical GPAs in the two required
lower-level introductory economics courses, they found significant differences in
the GPAs of their upper division economics courses. Based on this analysis, the
researchers suggested that the prerequisite courses completed at the community
college might not be as rigorous as prerequisite courses taken at the four-year
institution.
There is other research, however, which refutes portions of these findings.
Studying 230 transfer students who had achieved junior status at a major university
in the southern U.S. from 1989 through 1991, researchers (Carlan & Byxbe, 2000)
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found that the GPAs of transfer students were lower in the first semester of upper
division work when compared with students who entered the four-year institution
straight from high school. However, they pointed out that the grades of transfer
students improved following that first semester and that the upper-division GPAs of
transfer students were similar to the grades of their peers by the time these students
graduate.
Remedial Education
For many, remedial education is a twentieth century problem; however, it
has been around for as long as there has been American higher education. Harvard
College, as early as 1860, provided tutors in Latin for its new students and the
University of Wisconsin in 1849 offered the first remedial courses in reading,
writing, and arithmetic (Breneman & Haarlow, 1998). Remediation continues even
today because: “Educating everyone is a whole less expensive both monetarily, as
well as socially and emotionally, than to carry along in society large numbers of
people with minimal skills, with minimal educational development” (Astin, 2000,
2). However, remediation has come under fire as researchers caution that: “... the
present situation of remedial mathematics college students leads us to believe that
remediation in its present form is not successful” (Hagedorn et al., 1999, 263).
A number of studies exploring remediation in two- and four-year
institutions have painted a portrait of the remedial student. While not all-inclusive,
the remedial student is probably from a minority ethnic group (Day & McCabe,
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1997; Hagedorn et al., 1999), is likely to be age 21 or younger (Day & McCabe,
1997), is more likely to be female (Hagedom et al., 1999), has lower high school
GPAs than non-remedial students, and has planned for fewer years of college
(Grimes & David, 1999).
Remediation in postsecondary education consists of improving students’
basic skills once they arrive at college. This remains the norm even though there
have been suggestions that postsecondary institutions should eliminate remedial
classes and force secondary schools to ameliorate students’ deficiencies in basic
skills before they arrive at the postsecondary institution (Dougherty, 2002). The
process to identify students for remedial classes begins with student testing
immediately after they enroll in college to decide whether a student requires or
does not require remedial courses. Then, if students’ scores do not reach a
particular threshold, the student is enrolled in a remedial class; in this process, the
decision to enroll or not to enroll students in remedial classes rests solely with the
institution since each college or university sets its own acceptable literacy standard
(Merisotis & Phipps, 2000). Critics to this process (Perin, 2002) have suggested
that the criteria for remediation should be standardized nationally and the academic
community should identify the specific skills and knowledge that students need in
order to successfully meet the college-level academic demands. If implemented,
then only students who do not meeting these national standards should then be
enrolled in remedial classes (32).
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Remediation in postsecondary education is widespread as 81 percent of
public four-year institutions (Marcus, 2000) and every community college offers at
least one developmental course (Mazzeo, 2002). As an example, approximately 30
percent of all incoming freshmen (Marcus, 2000) and almost 50 percent of students
with more than 10 credit hours have completed at least one remedial course
(Adelman, 1998). In addition, researchers forecast that the magnitude of
remediation may well expand in the future; that the projected increase in
postsecondary enrollments will also bring a proportionate number of under
prepared students (Day & McCabe, 1997). If this happens, many institutions but
especially community colleges would need to increase their remediation courses
since these institutions commonly enroll under-prepared students (Hagedorn, et al.,
1999). Finally, researchers are predicting that the rising costs to attend four-year
institutions will drive more students to the community colleges, with their open-
access admission policies. There is further speculation that many of these students
come from the lower boundaries of high school classes and that community
colleges will be forced to expand their remediation efforts (Dougherty, 2002).
Remedial classes clearly affect a substantial number of students and make
up a large portion of the curriculum at community colleges (Kozeracki, 2002). As
a result, critics argue that these courses represent an unreasonable postsecondary
expense since the cost of remediation is simply paying for the same education twice
(Mazzeo, 2002). However, there is little evidence that significant savings would be
realized by eliminating remedial classes (Boylan, 1999; Kurzet, 1997). In fact, a
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61
recent report from the Brookings Institute pointed out that conducting remedial
classes costs less than one percent of the total U.S. annual expenditures for
postsecondary education (Marcus, 2000). At the state level, a survey of
remediation costs revealed that a few states with large minority populations might
expend more than one percent of their postsecondary budgets, however, there are
many others who spend significantly less than one percent of their total budgets.
States spending larger amounts for remediation included Florida, which expended
$57.5 million for remediation or 2.3 percent of the state’s higher education budget
and Texas expended $172 million, or about 2.8 percent of lower-division
instructional costs at four-year institutions and 18.8 percent of instructional costs in
community colleges. On the other hand, expenditures in Virginia were $24-26
million of their $1.5 billion budget and the California State Universities expended
about one percent of their annual expenditures on remediation (Breneman &
Haarlow, 1998).
Once remedial students enroll in college, research has shown that there are
significant differences in all of their academic success measures. As an example, in
one study which compared the GPAs of students who required remedial assistance
with students who did not require remediation, under-prepared students had a mean
GPA of 2.36 in their college-level courses while college-ready students had a mean
GPA of 2.82. In addition, when the researchers examined the course hours
completed and the course hours attempted, they found that students who were
under-prepared for college had a mean of 28.80 hours and 4.11 semesters
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completed while college-ready students averaged 45.74 hours and completed 4.91
semesters (Grimes & David, 1999).
The number of remedial courses students take also can serve to predict their
academic success. As an example, a study (Hoyt, 1999) conducted at a large urban
community college with a student population of over 18,000 students was designed
to determine how many students who were enrolled in the fall 1993, 1994 and 1995
freshmen cohorts transferred, graduated, were still enrolled, or dropped out of the
institution by Fall 1998 (58). The study found a positive correlation between the
number of remedial courses and student drop-out rates. By Fall 1998, students who
were required to enroll in three areas of remedial education had a 72 percent drop
out rate. This compared to the 63 percent drop-out rate for students who were
required to enroll in only one area of remedial education and the 60 percent drop
out rate for students who were not required to enroll in any remedial courses.
Researchers also discovered that there was a negative correlation between remedial
education and a student’s first-term GPA. They discovered that the first-term GPA
for non-remedial students was 2.80, the first-term GPA for students needing two
areas of remedial was 2.47, and students who needed three areas of remedial had a
first-term GPA of 2.30. In another study, college transcripts for the national high
school class of 1982 were followed through to 1993 in order to determine the
highest undergraduate degree (bachelor’s or associate’s degree) these students
earned by age 30. This study also showed that not only was there a negative
correlation between number of remedial classes required and first-term GPA, but
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that there was also a negative correlation between students’ baccalaureate
attainment and the number of remediation courses students complete. For example,
45 percent of students who were required to take one remedial course received their
bachelor’s degrees; however, only 24 percent of students who were required to take
three or four remedial courses received their baccalaureate degrees (Adelman,
1998).
Interestingly, this negative correlation between the number of remedial
courses completed and educational attainment has not been found to consistently
carry over to the community college. As an example, in a study of remedial
students at a community college, researchers found that while 15 percent of
students who took five or more remedial courses received associate’s degrees, only
10 percent of students who took one remedial course received associate’s degrees.
Moreover, only six percent of students who were not required to take any remedial
courses received their associate’s degrees. The researchers suggested that the
reason a negative correlation between the number of remedial courses taken and
educational attainment was found only in four-year institutions and not in
community colleges might be due to the fact that two-year institutions provide a
more nurturing environment for under-prepared students. Thus, enrolling in
remedial courses is not a serious impediment to degree attainment for community
college students who make the effort (Adelman, 1998).
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Conclusion
The research in the literature provides a clear assessment that the extensive
use of part-time faculty in higher education is here to stay. This faculty segment
has become an integral faculty segment in the nation’s colleges and universities and
these part-time employees are needed more than ever as they give institutions more
flexibility (Cohen & Brawer, 2003), entail less of an institutional commitment
(Jacobs, 1998), add different experiences not available through full-time faculty
(Gaddy, 1998; Haeger, 1998), and cost less to hire than full-time faculty (Cohen &
Brawer, 2003). Most importantly, these faculty members are especially needed at
two-year institutions because in addition to economic benefits, the loss of this
valuable workforce will also cause pedagogical suffering; if forced from the
classroom, they will eliminate one of the fundamental purposes of community
colleges: that is, providing students with a practical education (Banachowski, 1996,
7).
However, community college administrators should not have to rely solely
on economic benefits when making difficult faculty employment decisions.
Faculty at two-year institutions, and they can be either full- or part-time, must be
able to facilitate student learning; a difficult task because many students are
inadequately prepared for college work. Unfortunately, the literature contains only
a very limited number of empirical studies that actually compare the relationships
of faculty employment status and student outcomes; and what empirical research is
available has produced conflicting results. Thus, there is a clear need for additional
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empirical research examining the relationships that exist between faculty
employment status and student academic outcomes.
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CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to determine whether faculty demographics
(such as employment category, length of teaching experience, number of times
previously taught a course, or gender) have statistically significant relationships or
interactions with the evaluation of student academic outcomes, as measured by the
end-of-course grades. The level of analysis for this study was the student enrolled
at one of the nine community colleges campuses in the Los Angeles Community
College District (LACCD) during the spring of 2001. Descriptive and inferential
statistics were used to examine what relationships and interactions existed between
specific faculty characteristics and student academic outcomes.
This chapter provides the framework for an analysis of the statistical
findings in the context of the research questions in Chapter 1. Observed outcomes
will be interpreted in relation to the extent the outcomes support or fail to support
the research hypotheses. Analysis of variance will be used to compare the
relationships of the independent variables of interest on the dependent variable.
This chapter will be formatted by beginning with a discussion of the research
questions, the hypotheses, and concluding with a description of the research
methodology.
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Research Questions
The research question addressed in this study was: What are the
relationships and interactions between faculty characteristics (such as employment
status, teaching experience, the number of times faculty taught a course, and age)
and their evaluation of student academic outcomes?
The research parameters for this study have been developed on the
recommendations of Hagedom (2005) and Feldman & Tumley, (2001). The
authors have called for research that evaluate whether student academic outcomes
differ when courses are taught by full- or part-time faculty and whether outcome
results are mediated by faculty experience levels (Hagedorn, 2005); or research on
part-timers that focus on their quality of instruction impacts (Feldman & Tumley,
2001). Feldman & Tumley also maintained that data collection should be from
various types of postsecondary institutions, and sample size sufficient as to allow
for analysis of faculty characteristics.
This study’s research questions will be worded as to investigate whether
statistically significant relationships and interactions exist between faculty
employment category, certain faculty characteristics, and their evaluation of student
academic outcomes. Student academic outcomes will be evaluated by using a
proxy identified as end of semester course grade.
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Dependent Variable
According to Ellinger, Wright, & Hirlinger (1995), there have been a
number of surrogates of student learning or student achievement in the literature;
with the favorite being standard achievement scores (Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy, 2000;
Bolge, 1995). This proxy has enjoyed tremendous popularity because it has
allowed for simple student comparisons with national or regional standards (Banta,
1999); however, the author has cautioned that ease of comparison may be
overcome by the concern that standardized tests may not adequately evaluate the
learning expectations described in the course syllabus (15). A further concern over
the use of this proxy has been raised by Jones (2004) who has suggested that the
evaluation of student learning in the classroom can only be made by people.
Moreover, this evaluation should preferably be made by those who know the lesson
objectives and the one that knows the student best in his or her own context, that is,
the assigned faculty member (586).
Other substitutes used to measure student academic or learning outcomes
have been final examination scores (Clark, 1990), the receipt of a postsecondary
degree or certification (Voorhees, 1997), student grade point average (Betts &
Morell, 1999; Zahn & Schramm, 1992), and end-of-course grades, both class
average and by individual student (Davis, Belcher, & McKitterick, 1986;
McArthur, 1999; Fedler, 1989; Sonner, 2000; Hallock, Satava, & LeSage, 2003).
Most important for this study is the application of course grades as a proxy to
evaluate student academic outcomes.
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Course grades, according to Grove & Wasserman (2004) and O’Connor
(2001) have been used as convenient shorthand by faculty members to evaluate
student performance in a particular course at the end of a specified period of time.
Moreover, despite gaining widespread acceptance less than 100 years ago, letter
grades, had by the year 2003, been defined by most Americans as having
significant meaning (St. Maurice & Yudchitz, 2003, 4). Thus, “.. . the fact is all
faculty members have to judge students and the vehicle they use is the grading
system” (McArthur, 1999, 67).
Independent Variables
This study will focus on the relationship and interactions of four
independent variables; faculty employment status, faculty teaching experience, the
number of times faculty previously taught a course, and faculty age.
Faculty teaching experience
Intuitively, it would seem that there would be a positive relationship
between teacher experience and student achievement. As faculty gain teaching
experience, they would become more effective teachers; having learned what works
and what does not and how to teach difficult sections of the course (Blackburn &
Lawrence, 1986, 273). Numerous studies support this hypothesis: an examination
of data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS-88) by
Goldhaber & Brewer (1997) found that students taught by more experienced
teachers had higher test scores (507); that students learned less from novice
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teachers (Centra, 2003); and in a meta-analysis, Greenwald, Hedges, & Laine
(1996) found that teacher characteristics to include teacher experience, teacher
ability, and teacher education showed a very strong relationship with student
achievement (384).
On the other hand, Blackburn & Lawrence (1986) have suggested that
examining the relationship between teaching experience and classroom
performance through sociological theory would predict a negative correlation
between teaching effectiveness and experience. Their assumption was based on the
fact that teaching does not appear as one of the critical variables on the merit pay
scale for faculty and while the organization may punish unsatisfactory teaching,
quality performance in the classroom does not reward the outstanding teacher
(273). In addition, in a meta-analysis of 107 studies examining the effects of
teacher characteristics by Hanushek (1986) found that approximately 70 percent of
the studies found worsening (6 %) or no statistically significant results with higher
levels of teacher experience (1161). More recently, the author conducted an
examination of 90 publications which contained 377 separate production function
estimates (Hanushek, 1997, 142) and found that slightly more than 70 percent of
the studies found a statistically significant negative relationship (5 %) or no
statistical significance (144). Further, Wenglinsky (2002) examined the
relationship between teacher quality and academic achievement of 7,146 eighty
grade students who took the 1996 National Assessment of Education Progress
(NAEP). Utilizing multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM), the study
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found no significant relationship existed between teacher experience and student
achievement (18).
Finally, in research outside the academe, Choudhry, Fletcher, & Summerai
(2005) reviewed 59 articles that evaluated the relationship between physician
experience and performance and found a negative relationship existed between
experience and performance in the workplace. The authors have further reasoned
that “physicians who have been in practice for more years and older physicians
possess less factual knowledge, are less likely to adhere to appropriate standards of
care, and may also have poorer patient outcomes” (269).
Faculty age
This study also examined whether faculty age was a moderating factor in
the grades that full- or part-time faculty awarded to their students. According to
Blackburn and Lawrence (1986), examining the impact of age on performance
through the psychological and sociological theories would illustrate different
conceptions. They noted that viewing the impact of age on performance through
the lens of sociological theory would predict a decline in teaching performance as
faculty grew older. As an example, institutions may punish unsatisfactory
teaching, but there are normally few rewards for exemplary teaching performance
(273). On the view from the lens of psychological theory, Blackburn and Lawrence
have suggested that teaching effectiveness could have contrasting results. The
authors noted that since essential intelligence and related attributes would hold over
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the career of a faculty member, one would predict improved teaching effectiveness
with the passage of time (273). However, the other side of psychological theory
would illustrate an older professor who was less willing to try new techniques or
contemporary equipment, thus raising questions about the teaching effectiveness of
the aged faculty member (273). This view of the inflexible “old timer” was
supported by Choudhry, Fletcher, & Soumerai (2005) who examined 59 articles on
physician performance and then suggested that older physicians may have less
familiarity with new strategies (evidence-based medicine and quality assurance
techniques such as disease management and performance evaluation) and may be
less accepting of them (79).
Other differences in attitudes and behavior of faculty in different career
stages have been uncovered by Feldman & Tumley (2001) who found that job
satisfaction and professional commitment were higher among faculty age 50-plus
(late-career faculty) than among younger (faculty in their 20s) or mid-career faculty
members who were in their 30s and 40s (9). Their study results indicated that late-
career adjunct faculty members demonstrated more positive job attitudes, were
most apt to exhibit the most desirable work-related behaviors and were most
satisfied with their part-time employment when they were compared with early- or
mid-career part-timers. While the authors concluded that late-career adjuncts
reacted most positively to their standing as a part-time faculty member, either
because of their longer commitment to their profession or because low pay and the
lack of job security were not critical issues at this stage of their careers, these
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positive attributes could also translate to more effective teaching in the classroom.
Finally, in a study of full-time faculty members, Bayer & Braxton (1998) found
that younger community college faculty (measured by years since receipt of highest
degree awarded) were stronger advocates of the prescription that the grades faculty
used to evaluate student academic performance should be fair and according to
merit.
The research questions for this study will focus on what relationships and
interactions exist between faculty employment status, faculty teaching experience,
the number of times faculty taught a course, faculty age, with the grades that
faculty award to evaluate students’ academic outcomes. The specific questions
framing this study are:
QUESTION 1: What is the relationship between the employment category
of faculty (full-time or part-time) employed by the Los Angeles Community
College District (LACCD) and student academic outcomes through awarding of
course grades? Does the length of faculty teaching experience moderate the
relationship between faculty employment category (full- or part-time) and student
academic outcomes?
QUESTION 2: Is there a statistically significant relationship or interaction
between faculty employment status and the number of times faculty members teach
a particular course, with the grades they award to evaluate students’ academic
outcomes?
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QUESTION 3: Is there a significant relationship or interaction between
faculty employment status, faculty age and the evaluation of student academic
outcomes?
Hypothesis 1
Ho: There will not be a statistically significant relationship between faculty
employment status and the course grades faculty award to evaluate students’
academic outcomes.
H i: There will be a statistically significant difference between the course
grades awarded by part-time and full-time faculty members.
Hypothesis 2
Ho: There will not be a statistically significant relationship or interaction
between the lengths of teaching experience of full-time or part-time faculty with the
grades they award to evaluate students’ academic outcomes.
Hp There will be a statistically significant relationship or interaction
between full-time and part-time faculty members’ length of teaching experience
and the grades they award.
Hypothesis 3
Ho: No statistically significant relationship or interaction exists between the
number of times full-time and part-time faculty members teach a particular course
with the grades they award to evaluate students’ academic outcomes.
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Hi: There will be a statistically significant difference between the number
of times full-time and part-time faculty members teach a particular course and the
grades they award.
Hypothesis 4
Ho: There will not be a statistically significant relationship or interaction
between the ages of full-time and part-time faculty members and the grades they
award to evaluate students’ academic outcomes.
Hi: There will be a statistically significant relationship or interaction
between faculty employment status, faculty age and the course grades faculty
award.
Methodology
This study is a secondary analysis of data collected through the Transfer
and Retention of Urban Community College Students (TRUCCS) project. The
TRUCCS project was originally funded by the Field Initiated Studies of the U.S.
Department of Education (OERI Grant R305T000154) and more recently was
extended by the Lumina Foundation (Grant #1415). The project is housed at the
University of Southern California (USC) and works closely with the Los Angeles
Community College District (LACCD). Dr. Linda Serra Hagedom is the director
of the project and she also chairs the Community College Leadership Program at
USC. TRUCCS was originally proposed as a three-year, longitudinal and
comprehensive study of the goals, successes and academic patterns of 5,000
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76
community college students enrolled in the nine campuses of the Los Angeles
Community College District (LACCD) (Retrieved on August 7, 2002, from
http://www. use, edu/dept/ education/truccs.
The TRUCCS project was developed with a goal of isolating and analyzing
factors related to retention and transfer of students attending classes in a large,
urban community college district. The project design expanded on previous
research into the success of community college students by incorporating new
items to measure factors present in the LACCCD that were not sufficiently or
previously discussed in extant literature. The TRUCCS survey consisted of a 47-
item questionnaire that included scales pertinent to a population where English is
not the student’s native language. In previous research, questionnaires designed to
obtain retention and transfer data from minority students simply asked students if
English was their native language; however, the TRUCCS project went much
further and asked students to rate their ability to read, write, understand a college
lecture, read a college text book, write an essay exam, write a term paper,
participate in class discussion, and communicate with instructors in English. The
TRUCCS questionnaire also asked how often students use English or a language
other than English in their communications with parents, friends, and others
(Retrieved on August 7, 2002, from http://www. use, edu/dept/education/truccs).
Since the objective of this project was on explanation rather than description,
neither random sampling nor random assignment was selected. Instead, a sampling
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technique that was characteristic of quasi-experimental research was selected
(Hagedorn, Maxwell, & Moon, 1999).
Population and Sample
The LACCD is one of the largest community college districts in America
and is composed of nine colleges: (a) Los Angeles City; (b) East Los Angeles;
(c) Los Angeles Harbor; (d) Los Angeles Mission; (e) Los Angeles Pierce; (f) Los
Angeles Southwest; (g) Los Angeles Trade-Tech; (h) Los Angeles Valley; and
(i) West Los Angeles. The nine campuses serve over 125,000 students (Table 1).
By campus, the East Los Angeles campus supported the largest student body with
21,629 students, followed by Los Angeles Valley with 19,275. The smallest
campus was Los Angeles Southwest with 6,600 students.
Student Characteristics
A description of student characteristics found that:
• Over 53 percent of the students were above the age of twenty-four;
• 80 percent were ethnic minorities;
• 60 percent were female;
• 76.5 percent focused on transfer, were obtaining a general education, or were
completing vocational or technical training as their educational goal;
• Over 73 percent planned to transfer to a four-year college or university;
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• Over 34 percent had some problem (small to very large) understanding the
English language; and
• Nearly 43 percent had a self-reported high school GPA of B- or better.
Table 1. Student Enrollment by Campus for Fall 2001
Campus Enrollment
Los Angeles City 18,372
East Los Angeles 21,629
Los Angeles Elarbor 9,469
Los Angeles Mission 8,966
Los Angeles Pierce 18,874
Los Angeles Southwest 6,600
Los Angeles Trade Tech 13,437
Los Angeles Valley 19,275
West Los Angeles 9,718
Total 126,340
Retrieved from http://research.laccd.edu/research/SummrvFl.htm on March 14, 2004.
Within the LACCD, women students made up approximately 60 percent of
the student body, with male students making up the remaining 40 percent of the
student population. These percentages are very similar with a national average
finding where 58 percent of community college students were female (Cohen &
Brawer, 2003). The diversity of the LACCD is also evident when comparing
student ethnicities with those of students attending two-year institutions across the
nation. In the LACCD, approximately four out of every five students belongs to an
ethnic minority; more than double the nation-wide average (about one out of three
students) that Cohen & Brawer (2003) have suggested attend community colleges.
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The breakdown of the major student ethnicities for the Fall 2002 semester in the
LACCD is at Table 2. The data reveals that Hispanic students constituted the
largest proportion of the student population (45.9 %) followed by white students
(19.9 %), black students (16.9 %) and Asian students (14.6 %). Hispanic students
ranged from a low of 19.6 percent at the Los Angeles Southwest campus to a high
(76.2 %) at East Los Angeles. Another interesting distribution is of White students;
from a low of 0.4 percent at Los Angeles Southwest to 43.1 percent at Los Angeles
Southwest. What this means is that at some campuses in the LACCD, almost the
total student population belongs to an ethnic minority.
Table 2. Fall 2002 LACCD Student Ethnicities
Campus Asian Black Hispanic White
Los Angeles City 20.4 11.9 40.9 24.3
East Los Angeles 18.5 2.1 76.2 2.4
Los Angeles Harbor 17.4 15.4 42.8 22.4
Los Angeles Mission 7.2 5.7 69.4 15.4
Los Angeles Pierce 20.4 6.2 24.9 43.1
Los Angeles Southwest 1.1 78.2 19.6 0.4
Los Angeles Trade-Tech 7.8 31.0 54.4 5.6
Los Angeles Valley 13.3 6.9 40.6 34.5
West Los Angeles 9.3 49.2 24.3 14.1
Total 14.6 16.9 45.9 19.9
Percentages of “Other” ethnicity students not shown.
Retrieved from http://research.laccd.edu/research/SummrvFl.htm on March 14. 2004
The student sample for this study consisted of 61.2 percent female and 38.8
percent male students. The female sample was slightly higher than the percentage
of females in the LACCD (60 %). In the sample, the percentage of participants
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above the age of twenty-four was exactly the same as that in the LACCD (53 %).
The study sample consisted of twenty-two percent of the participants age 20 years
or younger, 25 percent age 21-24, 16 percent age 25-29, 22 percent age 30-39, 13
percent age 40-54, and 2 percent age 55 years or older. Further, the diversity of
the student population was evident with 59.8 percent Latino or Hispanic, 18.3
percent African American, 11.2 percent Asian, 1.9 percent American Indian, 0.7
percent Pacific Islander, 0.1 percent Alaskan Native, and 0.3 percent Arab.
Faculty Characteristics
The majority of faculty members participating in the study were over the
age of 50 (59 %) with the largest segment between the ages of 51-60 (38 %). More
specifically, the mean age of part-time faculty in the study was 45.8 years while
full-time faculty averaged 48 years of age. The distribution of male and female
participating faculty members was similar to national averages. As an example, the
faculty sample for the TRUCCS project consisted of 51.4 percent female and 47.6
percent male with 0.9 percent reported as missing data, while Leslie & Gappa
(2002) using data from the Center for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC)
and the National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty for 1992-1993 (NSOPF-93),
found that part-time faculty members were just as likely to be men as women.
Finally, faculty members who participated in the TRUCCS project were very
experienced, as about 73 percent reported they had been teaching for over 11 or
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more years and about 56 percent had been employed by their current institution for
7 or more years.
Research Participation
The TRUCCS student survey was six pages long and it was administered
during spring 2001 to 5,000 students in 241 classrooms across the 9 community
college campuses in the LACCD. The nine LACCD campuses participating in the
study were: (a) Los Angeles City; (b) East Los Angeles; (c) Los Angeles Harbor;
(d) Los Angeles Mission; (e) Los Angeles Pierce; (f) Los Angeles Southwest;
(g) Los Angeles Trade-Tech; (h) Los Angeles Valley; and (i) West Los Angeles.
Participating classrooms were identified through a stratified random sampling
method that focused on three levels of English courses (English 21, English 28 and
English 101) and a representative sample of students in occupational programs.
The research sample size consisted of 4,433 students.
Instrumentation
This section contains a discussion of the three separate databases used in
this study: (a) TRUCCS Community College Student Survey; (b) TRUCCS
Participating Faculty Survey; and (c) transcript data which were taken from
archival records.
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TRUCCS Community College Student Survey (See Appendix A)
The TRUCCS Community College Student Survey was a 47-item
questionnaire which was uniquely designed to obtain data from community college
students in the LACCD, the nation’s largest community college district. The
survey instrument covered a broad array of student background characteristics,
beliefs and consequences, academic integration, experiences, future intentions and
aspirations. The major categories of the questionnaire were: 1) demographic
characteristics (for example: gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, family status,
employment status, parent’s occupation and parent’s education); 2) educational
background (for example: prior institutions attended, high school grade, previous
math and science courses taken, and degrees earned); 3) reasons for attending this
particular institution; 4) determination; 5) beliefs and consequences; 6) academic
integration; 7) attitude; 8) obstacles to pursing and education; 9) English ability;
and 10) aspirations. Administration of the TRUCCS student questionnaires was
done by two groups of students: undergraduate students who were paid $25 for
each classroom surveyed and doctoral-level students. The undergraduate students
who administered the surveys were former LACCD students who had transferred to
the University of Southern California. Approximately fifty students attended the
initial hosting and 15 from that group were hired to administer the surveys. The
doctoral-level students were enrolled in a seminar investigating the transfer and
retention of urban community college students, a class co-taught by Dr. Hagedorn
and Dr. Maxwell. The graduate students were not paid since participation was
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83
considered a part of their course assignment (Retrieved on January 10, 2005 from
http: ://www. use. edu/dept/education/truccs).
TRUCCS Participating Faculty Survey (See Appendix B)
The TRUCCS project team also developed the Participating Faculty Survey
that was used in this study. The faculty questionnaire was constructed because the
team saw a benefit in obtaining faculty responses about the class and students being
surveyed. The survey was administered to faculty simultaneously with the
administration of the survey. The Participating Faculty Survey consisted of 11
questions that are categorized as defining: student abilities in the class;
instructional methods and student evaluation methods; whether the class was part
of a learning community; employment status; age; gender; ethnic group; teaching
experience; length of employment at this institution; years teaching particular
course; and any general student comments. The data from this survey were merged
with the TRUCCS student survey.
Transcript Data
During the Summer of 2001, the LACCD provided the TRUCCS project
team with transcript data for the Spring 2001 semester. This grade data was
provided for all students who signed a consent form; approximately 96 percent of
the students signed the consent form. Transcript data for students who completed
courses during the Spring 2001 semester was merged with the TRUCCS student
and faculty surveys to develop the dataset for this study.
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84
Data Collection
This study is a secondary data analysis of survey responses which were
collected, analyzed and validated through the TRUCCS project. The original
TRUCCS survey data was validated and refined through analysis using a sampling
design that maximized variation in the independent variables and allowed
researchers to make internally valid comparisons of subgroups (Hagedorn &
Maxwell, 1999).
Data Analysis
This study used the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS), Version
11.0 in the conduct of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics to investigate
the existence and extent of relationships among the selected variables. The
TRUCCS project originally surveyed 5,000 students utilizing the TRUCCS
Community College Student Survey and 250 faculty members using the TRUCCS
Participating Faculty Survey. Basically, these two datasets would be merged with
transcript data for the Spring 2001 semester. The final sample for this study
contained 4,968 student records with faculty and transcript data; however, the
dataset contained 1,591 records with grades that did not equal to letter grades “A”
to “D.” These records were eliminated, leaving a final dataset of 3,377 records for
analysis. Moreover, letter grades were recoded to convert them into a numeric
value as follows: “A” = 4; “B” = 3; “C” = 2, and “D” = 1.
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85
Descriptive statistics was used to examine frequencies, means, and standard
deviations for the independent and dependent variables. Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA) was conducted to examine whether significant relationships or
interactions existed between faculty members’ employment status, length of
teaching experience, number of times faculty taught a course, the age of faculty,
and the grades they awarded to evaluate academic outcomes. Significant
interactions would be further investigated by splitting the files and then conducting
one-way ANOVAs. Significant main effects would be examined through post-hoc
tests. An alpha of p < .05 was utilized to determine statistical significance for the
ANOVA tests.
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86
CHAPTER 4
RESULTS
Introduction
This chapter analyzed the observed outcomes in the context of the research
questions in Chapter 1. Outcomes were interpreted to the extent they supported or
failed to support the research hypotheses. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was
used as the statistical technique to compare the relationships and interactions of the
independent variables of interest (faculty employment status, the length of faculty
teaching experience, the number of times faculty taught a particular course, and
faculty age) and the dependent variable (faculty evaluation of student academic
outcomes). For this study, student academic outcome was measured through the
use of the proxy, student grades (grades “A” through “D”).
Statistical Analysis Results
The statistical analysis results section describes the results of the statistical
examination of the interactions and relationships of the independent variables with
the dependent variable. This study used all of the TRUCCS survey segregation and
coding for the independent and dependent variables. The independent variable,
faculty employment category was coded “1” for full-time faculty and “2” for part
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87
time faculty. The six levels of the second independent variable, faculty teaching
experience are contained in Table 3.
Table 3. Faculty Teaching Experience
Number of Years Teaching Code
First-Year Faculty 1
Faculty 1-3 Years 2
Faculty 4-6 Years 3
Faculty 7-10 Years 4
Faculty 11-20 Years 5
Faculty 21+ Years 6
The five levels of the third independent variable, number of times faculty
had previously taught the course, are contained in Table 4. The final independent
variable used in this study was faculty age and the TRUCCS survey segregation is
contained in Table 5.
Table 4. Number of Times Faculty Previously Taught the Course
Number of Times Faculty
Previously Taught the Course Code
No previous experience 1
Taught 1-2 times 2
Taught 3-5 times 3
Taught 6-10 times 4
Taught course 11+ times 5
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Table 5. Faculty Age
Faculty Age Code
Less than 30 years 1
Between 31 -40 years 2
Between 41-50 years 3
Between 51-60 years 4
Between 61-70 years 5
Age 71 or older 6
Statistical analyses for this study were conducted on a research file which
was constructed through the merging of the TRUCCS student survey data, the
TRUCCS faculty data, and student transcript data. The TRUCCS student surveys
were administered to 5,000 community college students at nine campuses in the
LACCD during the 2001 spring semester. Of the 5,000 surveys administered, a
total of 4,968 surveys were returned to the researchers. The TRUCCS researchers
examined all returned surveys and discovered that one survey did not contain a
section number; thus it was removed from the sample, and reduced the final
TRUCCS student dataset to 4,967 records. Simultaneously with the administration
of the TRUCCS student survey, the TRUCCS research team also distributed 250
TRUCCS faculty surveys to faculty members teaching students being surveyed. Of
the 250 administered surveys, 212 faculty surveys were returned to the researchers.
Upon further examination, two surveys did not contain employment status; thus
leaving 210 faculty surveys available for analysis. The final dataset utilized in this
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89
study consisted of transcript data for all students who completed courses at the nine
campuses of the LACCD during the 2001 spring semester. Transcript data was
provided to the TRUCCS project team during the summer of 2001. To ensure
students were aware of the release of their grade information, this data file only
contained grade data for students who signed a consent form (approximately 96
percent of the students signed the consent form).
The research file for this study was developed by merging the TRUCCS
faculty data with the TRUCCS student survey dataset. Once that was completed,
the transcript data was merged with the combined student and faculty dataset.
Upon merging of the three files, the dataset consisted of 4,148 student records.
However, once student grades that did not equal “A”, “B”, “C”, or “D” were
eliminated, the final sample for this study consisted of 3,377 records.
Research Questions
Research Question #1
What is the relationship between the employment category of faculty (full
time or part-time) employed by the LACCD and grades they award to community
college students to evaluate students’ academic outcome? Does the length of
faculty teaching experience moderate the relationship between faculty employment
status and student grades?
This question was first examined utilizing a Chi-Square Test and then
further analyzed by the conduct of a two-way, between-groups ANOVA. The two
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90
independent variables were: (1) faculty employment status; and (2) the length of
teaching experience. The dependent variable was the end-of-course grades that
faculty awarded as an evaluation of students’ academic outcomes.
Cross-tabulation results (faculty employment status and faculty teaching
experience) in Table 6 revealed that a total of 2,883 student records were associated
with full-and part-time faculty (statistical analysis began with 3,377 student
records, however, eliminating 494 missing cases resulted in a final dataset of 2,883
student records). Of the 2,883 records, 1,439 records were associated with full
time faculty while 1,444 records were associated with part-time faculty. What was
clear from the cross-tabulation results was the utilization of experienced faculty by
the LACCD. For example, the most senior faculty (those with 21 or more years of
teaching experience) were associated with the greatest numbers of students (1,331)
while the most junior faculty (those in their first year of teaching) were associated
with the least numbers of students (228). Moreover, faculty members with more
than 10 years of teaching experience were associated with approximately three out
of four students (2,185 out of 2,883 students).
Table 6. Records by Faculty Employment Status
Between Subjects Factors
Value Label N
Employment Status 1 Full Time Faculty 1439
2 Part Time Faculty 1444
How Long Teaching 2 1-3 years 228
3 4-6 years 296
4 7-10 years 174
5 11-20 years 854
6 21 - more years 1331
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A second cross-tabulation (Table 7) revealed that full-faculty awarded more
“A” and “B” grades (63.0 %) than their full-time counterparts (60.9 %). Moreover,
a more specific examination found that full-time faculty awarded more “A,” “B,”
and “D” letter grades, while part-timers awarded more letter grade of “C”.
Table 7. Grades Awarded by Full-Time and Part-Time Faculty
Employment Status
Total
Full-time
Faculty
Part-tim e
Faculty
G rade Point D Count
% within Grade Point
% employment status
123
51.9%
8.5%
114
48.1%
7.9%
237
100.0%
8.2%
C Count
% within Grade Point
% employment status
409
47.6%
28.4%
450
52.4%
31.2%
859
100.0%
29.8%
B Count
% within Grade Point
% employment status
466
5.03%
32.4%
461
49.7%
31.9%
927
100.0%
32.2%
A Count
% within Grade Point
% employment status
441
51.3%
30.6%
419
48.7%
29.0%
860
100.0%
29.8%
TOTAL
Count
% within Grade Point
% employment status
1439
49.9%
100.0%
1444
50.1%
100.0%
2883
100.0%
100.0%
A Chi-Square (X ) test was conducted to evaluate whether there was a
relationship between faculty employment status and teaching experience (Table 8).
Faculty employment status and teaching experience were found to be significantly
related, Pearson X2 (4, N = 2,883) = 158.62, p = .00, which indicated that the
numbers were independent and were valid for examination.
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Table 8. Chi-Square Test (Research Question #1)
92
Value Df Asymp. Sis.
(2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 158.962“ 4 .000
Likelihood Ratio 169.566 4 .000
Linear-by Linear
Association
25.974 1 .000
N of Valid Cases 2883
a0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum
expected count is 86.85.
Table 9. Cross Tabulation (Employment Status and How Long Teaching)
Employment Status
Total
Full-time
Faculty
Part-tim e
Faculty
How long 1-3 years Count 111 117 228
teaching Expected Count 113.8 114.2 228.0
Row Percentage 48.7 51.3 100.0
4-6 years Count 53 243 296
Expected Count 147.7 148.3 296.0
Row Percentage 17.9 82.1 100.0
7-10 years Count 116 58 174
Expected Count 86.8 87.2 174.0
Row Percentage 66.7 33.3 100.0
11-20 years Count 488 366 854
Expected Count 426.3 427.7 854.0
Row Percentage 57.1 42.9 100.0
21-more years Count 671 660 1331
Expected Count 664.3 666.7 1331.0
Row Percentage 50.4 49.6 100.0
Count 1439 1444 2883
TOTAL Expected Count 1439.0 1444.0 2883.0
Row Percentage 240.8 259.2 500.0
The means and standard deviations for student grades as a function of the
two independent variables are presented in Table 10. The overall mean grade
awarded to students by both full- and part-time faculty was 2.84, with full-timers
awarding a slightly higher average grade (2.85 mean grade) while part-timers
awarded slightly lower grades (2.82 mean grade). The highest average grade (3.04
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grade point) was awarded by a faculty with 1-3 years of teaching experience; on the
other hand, faculty with the most experience (21 or more years of teaching
experience) awarded the lowest mean grade (2.79 grade point). The most junior
full-time faculty awarded the highest average grade (3.24 grade point) while full-
timers with 7-10 years of teaching experience, about in the middle of the survey
segregation, awarded the lowest grades (2.59 grade point). In the group of part-
time faculty, adjuncts with 7-10 years of teaching experience awarded the highest
average grade (3.33 grade point) while the lowest average grade (2.73 grade point)
was awarded by the most experienced faculty.
Table 10. Descriptive Statistics (Means and Standard Deviations)
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
Employment
Status
How long
teaching
Mean Std. Deviation N
Full-time Faculty 1-3 years 3.24 .844 111
4-6 years 2.96 .919 53
7-10 years 2.59 .924 116
11-20 years 2.83 .955 488
21-more years 2.84 .961 671
TOTAL 2.85 .955 1439
Part-time Faculty 1-3 years 2.84 .973 117
4-6 years 2.97 .970 243
7-10 years 3.33 .846 58
11-20 years 2.81 .923 366
21-more years 2.73 .924 660
TOTAL 2.82 .941 1444
TOTAL 1-3 years 3.04 .933 228
4-6 years 2.97 .960 296
7-10 years 2.83 .962 174
11-20 years 2.82 .941 854
21-more years 2.79 .945 1331
TOTAL 2.84 .948 2883
A 2 x 6 analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to evaluate whether
a statistically significant relationship or interaction existed between the independent
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94
variables, employment category of faculty employed by the LACCD (full-time or
part-time) and length of teaching experience and the dependent variable, grades
faculty awarded to evaluate academic outcomes. The results of the ANOVA (Table
11) revealed no statistically significant main effect for faculty employment status
(FI, 2873) = .65, p = .42, partial Eta squared = .00; that is, there were no significant
differences in the grades awarded by either full- or part-time faculty. There was,
however, a statistically significant interaction between faculty employment status
and teaching experience (F4, 2,873) = 9.38, p = .00, partial Eta squared = .01 and a
statistically significant main effect for teaching experience (F4, 2,873) = 5.24, p =
.00, partial Eta squared = .01. The statistically significant interaction between
faculty employment status and faculty teaching experience indicated a need for
follow-up analysis. To begin the investigation, the independent variable, length of
teaching experience, was split into groups and then, separate one-way ANOVAs
were conducted. A summary of the ANOVAs has been provided in Table 12.
According to the results, statistically significant differences were found in the
grades awarded by full-time and part-time faculty with 1-3 years, those with 7-10
years, and full- and part-time faculty with 21 or more years of teaching experience.
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95
Table 11. Results o f the ANOVA (Tests o f Between-Subjects Effects)
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
Source Type III Sum
of Squares
Df Mean
Square
F Sig. Partial Eta
Squared
Corrected Mode 52.890 9 5.877 6.656 .000 .020
Intercept 1434.072 1 1434.0
72
2950.9
15
.000 .818
T EMPLOY .572 1 .572 .648 .421 .000
T EXP 18.508 4 4.627 5.241 .000 .007
T EMPLOY*
T EXP
33.128 4 8.282 9.381 .000 .013
Error 2536.507 2873 .883
Total 5776.000 2883
Corrected Total 2589.397 2882
“Computed using alpha = .05
b R Squared = .020 (Adjusted R Squared = .017)
Table 12. Summary of Tests of Between-Subjects Effects (Teaching
Experience)
Faculty Group F-Test Statistic Significance
Faculty with 1-3 years of teaching experience (FI, 226)= 11.25 p = .001*
Faculty with 4-6 years of teaching experience (FI, 294) = .001 p = .97
Faculty with 7-10 years of teaching
experience
(FI, 172) = 26.32 p = .000*
Faculty with 11-20 years of teaching
experience
(FI, 852) = .09 p = .76
Faculty with 21 or more years of teaching
experience
(FI, 1392) = 4.93 p = .03*
* = sig. at p < .05
Further investigation of the statistical significant interactions did not reveal
any distinguishing trends (Figure 1). While full-time faculty with 1-3 years of
teaching experience awarded a higher mean grade (3.24 grade point or almost a
“B+” average grade) than part-timers with the same level of experience (2.84 grade
point or not quite a “B” average), the opposite occurred in the case of faculty with
7-10 years. In that instance, full-time faculty awarded a much lower average grade
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96
(2.59 grade point or “C+” average grade) than their part-time counterparts (3.33
grade point or between a “B” and “B+” average grade). The final instance of
statistical significance in the category of faculty with 21 plus years of teaching
experience revealed that the average grade awarded by full-timers was slightly
higher than the mean grade awarded by adjuncts (2.84 grade point average versus
2.73 mean grade, respectively).
The main effect for teaching experience was also statistically significant,
thus requiring further examination through a post-hoc test. Since Levene’s Test of
Equality was not significant (F9, 2,873) =.53, p = .85, equal variances could be
assumed. As a result, the Tukey HSD was used to investigate the statistical
significance.
3.5
1 1
■ Full-Time
■ Part-Time
□ * sig p = .05
1-3 4-6 7-10 11-20 21+
Years* Years Years* Years Years*
Years of Teaching Experience
Figure 1. Mean Grades by Faculty Employment Status and Teaching
Experience
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97
Table 13. Levene’s Test of Equality o f Error Variances
D ependent V ariable: G rade P oint
F dfl df2 Sig.
.531 9 2873 .853
T ests the n u ll hypothesis th at the error variance o f the dependent variable is equal across groups.
The Post-Hoc Test of Multiple Comparisons results are contained in Table
14. There were statistical significant differences in the grades awarded by the most
senior faculty members (those with 21 or more years of experience) with those
awarded by the most junior faculty members (faculty members with 1-3 years and
4-6 years of teaching experience). Further, faculty with 11-20 years of teaching
experience also awarded grades significantly different from faculty members with
1-3 years of teaching experience.
Utilizing the mean grades in Table 10, the three cases of statistical
significance showed a negative correlation; that is, as faculty gained more
experience, there was a tendency to award lower grades (Figure 2). As an example,
the mean grade point awarded by faculty with 21 or more years of teaching
experience was 2.79 or about a “B-“ average; by contrast, the average grade point
awarded by faculty members with 1-3 years of experience was 3.04 and faculty
with 4-6 years of teaching experience awarded an average grade of 2.97. In a
second example, statistical significant differences were also found between faculty
with 11-20 years of experience (2.82 grade point) and faculty 1-3 years of teaching
experience.
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98
Table 14. Post-Hoc Test o f Multiple Comparisons
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
(I) how long
teaching
(J) how long
teaching
Mean
D ifference
(I-J)
Std.
Error
Sig.
95% Confidence
Interval
Lower
Bound
Upper
Bound
Tukey HSD 1-3 years 4-6 years .07 .083 .921 -.16 .29
7-10 years .20 .095 .206 -.06 .46
11 -20 years .22* .070 .016 .03 .41
21-more years .25 .067 .002 .07 .43
4-6 years 1-3 years -.07 .083 .921 -.29 .16
7-10 years .13 .090 .575 -.11 .38
11-20 years .15 .063 .130 -.02 .32
21-more years .18* .060 .023 .02 .35
7-10 years 1-3 years -.20 .095 .206 -.46 .06
4-6 years -.13 .090 .575 -.38 .11
11-20 years .02 .078 1.000 -.20 .23
21-more years .05 .076 .969 -.16 .25
11 -20 years 1-3 years -.22* .070 .016 -.41 -.03
4-6 years -.15 .063 .130 -.32 .02
7-10 years -.02 .078 1.000 -.23 .20
21-more years .03 .041 .936 -.08 .14
21-more years 1-3 years -.25* .067 -.002 -.43 -.07
4-6 years -.18* .060 .023 -.35 -.02
7-10 years -.05 .076 .969 -.25 .16
11-20 years -.03 .041 .936 -.14 .08
Dunnett C 1-3 years 4-6 years .07 .083 -.16 .30
7-10 years .20 .096 -.06 .47
11-20 years .22* .070 .03 .41
21-more years .25 .067 .07 .43
4-6 years 1 -3 years -.07 .083 -.30 .16
7-10 years .13 .092 -.12 .39
11-20 years .15 .064 -.03 .33
21-more years .18* .061 .01 .35
7-10 years 1-3 years -.20 .096 -.47 .06
4-6 years -.13 .092 -.39 .12
11-20 years .02 .080 -.20 .24
21-more years .05 .077 -.16 .26
11 -20 years 1-3 years -.22* .070 -.41 -.03
4-6 years -.15 .064 -.33 .03
7-10 years -.02 .080 -.24 .20
21-more years .03 .041 -.08 .15
21-more years 1-3 years -.25* .067 -.43 -.07
4-6 years -.18* .061 -.35 -.01
7-10 years -.05 .077 -.26 .16
11-20 years -.03 .041 -.15 .08
Based on observed means.
(*) The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.
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99
3.1
3.05
3
2.95
2.9
2.85
2.8
2.75
2.7
2.65
1-3 Years 4-6 Years 7-10 Years 11-20 Years 2 1 + Years
T e a c h in g E x p e rie n c e
□ M ean G rade
Figure 2. Mean Grades by Years of Teaching Experience
Research Question #2
What is the relationship or interaction between faculty employment status,
the number of times faculty members teach a course and the end-of-course grades
they award? Does the number of times faculty teach a course mediate the
relationship between their employment status and the grades they award to evaluate
students’ academic outcomes?
Cross-tabulation results of student records associated with the two
independent variables are at Table 15. Of the 2,874 student records used in the
analysis, 1,439 records were associated with full-time faculty while 1,435 were
associated with their part-time counterparts. In addition, the majority of the records
in this dataset (1,537 records) were associated with very experienced faculty (those
who had taught the course 11 or more times), and almost three out of every four
student were enrolled in classes led by faculty who had taught the course at least
six times.
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1 0 0
Table 15. Between-Subjects Factors (Research Question #2)
Value Label N
Employment Status 1 Full Time Faculty 1439
2 Part Time Faculty 1435
How Many Times
Taught Course
0 12
1 0 78
2 1 -2 261
3 3 -5 500
4 6 -1 0 486
5 11 - more 1537
A Chi-Square (X2) test was conducted to evaluate whether there was a
relationship between the independent variables; faculty employment status and the
number of times faculty taught a course (Table 16). Faculty employment status and
number of times faculty taught a course were found to be significantly related,
Pearson X2(5, N = 2,874) = 174.85, p = .000, which indicated that the numbers
were independent and were valid for examination.
Table 16. Chi-Square Test (Research Question #2)
Value df Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 174.8543 5 .000
Likelihood Ratio 184.271 5 .000
Linear-by-Linear
Association
18.788 1 .000
N of Valid Cases 2874
a0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum
expected count is 5.99.
The means and standard deviations provided in Table 18 revealed that the
average grade awarded by both full- and part-time faculty was 2.84, not quite a “B”
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101
letter grade. Further, the highest average grade was awarded by faculty who had
previously taught a course 3-5 times (3.04), while beginning faculty, those with no
previous experience teaching the course, awarded the lowest grade (2.58). In
follow-up examinations of each group of faculty separately, full-time faculty
awarded a mean grade of 2.85. Full-timers with no previous teaching experience
awarded the lowest mean grade (2.09 average grade) while those with 1-2 years of
teaching experience awarded the highest average grade (3.16 grade point). One
concern with these two results was the small sample sizes (N = 34) for the group of
full-timers with no previous teaching experience (N = 34) and for the group of
faculty with 1-2 years of teaching experience (N = 86). Finally, in an examination
of the grades awarded by adjunct faculty, the study results revealed that part-time
faculty who had taught a course 6-10 times awarded the lowest grade (2.67 grade
point) while faculty who had taught the course 3-5 times awarded the highest
average grade (3.07 grade point).
A 2 x 5 analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to evaluate whether
significant relationships or interactions existed between the two independent
variables, faculty employment status and the number of times faculty members
teach a course and the dependent variable, end-of-course grades faculty awarded to
evaluate students’ academic outcomes. The results of the ANOVA (Table 19)
indicated a statistically significant interaction between faculty employment status
and number of times faculty previously taught a course (F4, 2,863) = 9.30, p = .00,
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1 0 2
partial Eta squared = .01 and a statistically significant main effect for number of
times faculty taught a course (F5, 2,863) = 9.08, p = .00, partial Eta squared = .02.
Table 17. Cross Tabulation (Employment Status and Times Taught Course)
Employment Status
Total
Full-time
Faculty
Part-time
Faculty
How many 0
times taught
course
Count
% within how many times
taught course
% employment status
12
100.0%
.8%
12
100.0%
.4%
0 Count
% within how many times
taught course
% employment status
34
43.6%
2.4%
44
56.4%
3.1%
78
100.0%
2.7%
1-2 Count
% within how many times
taught course
% employment status
86
33.0%
6.0%
175
67.0%
12.2%
261
100.0%
9.1%
3-5 Count
% within how many times
taught course
% employment status
189
37.8%
13.1%
311
62.2%
21.7%
500
100.0%
17.4%
6-10 Count
% within how many times
taught course
% employment status
354
72.8%
24.6%
132
27.2%
9.2%
486
100.0%
16.9%
11-more Count
% within how many times
taught course
% employment status
764
49.7%
53.1%
773
50.3%
53.9%
1537
100.0%
53.5%
TOTAL
Count
% within how many times
taught course
% employment status
1439
51.1%
100.0%
1435
49.9%
100.0%
2874
100.0%
100.0%
Table 18. Descriptive Statistics (Means and Student Deviations)
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
Employment
Status
How many
times
Mean Std. Deviation N
Full-time Faculty 0 2.58 .669 12
0 2.09 .793 34
1-2 3.16 .866 86
3-5 3.00 .984 189
6-10 2.92 .884 354
11-more .279 .975 764
TOTAL .285 .955 1439
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103
Table 18 (continued).
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
Employment
Status
How many
times
Mean Std. Deviation N
Part-time Faculty 0 3.14 1.002 44
1-2 2.86 .975 175
3-5 3.07 .922 311
6-10 2.67 .905 132
11-more 2.73 .920 773
TOTAL 2.82 .940 1435
TOTAL 0 2.58 .669 12
0 2.68 1.051 78
1-2 2.96 .950 261
3-5 3.04 .946 500
6-10 2.85 .896 486
11-more 2.76 .948 1537
TOTAL 2.84 .947 2874
Table 19. Results of the ANOVA (Tests of Between-Subjects Efforts)
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
Source Type III
Sum of
Squares
Df Mean
Square
F Sig. Partial
Eta
Squared
Noncent.
Parameter
Observed
Power*
Corrected
Mode
72.012b 10 7.201 8.232 .000 .028 82.322 1.000
Intercept 3944.940 1 3944.940 4509.756 .000 .612 4509.756 1.000
T EMPLOY 2.734 1 2.734 3.125 .077 .001 3.125 .424
T TERM 39.710 5 7.942 9.079 .000 .016 45.395 1.000
T EMPLOY*
T TERM
32.543 4 8.136 9.301 .000 .013 37.202 1.000
Error 2504.429 2863 .875
Total 25722.000 2874
Corrected Total 2576.441 2873
aComputed using alpha = .05
b R Squared = .028 (Adjusted R Squared = .025)
Follow-up analysis was conducted to further investigate the statistically
significant interaction between the independent variables. The first step was to
split the independent variable, number of times faculty previously taught a course
into five groups (groups corresponded with the TRUCCS segregation). Then
separate one-way ANOVAs were conducted to examine the effect of the
moderating variable. A summary of the one-way ANOVAs is at Table 20.
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104
Statistically significant interactions were found in cases where faculty had never
previously taught a course (FI, 76) = 25.05, p < .0000, partial Eta squared = .25;
where faculty had taught a course 1-2 times (FI, 259) = 6.09, p < .01, partial Eta
squared = .02; and where faculty had previously taught a course 6-10 times (FI,
484) = 7.85, p < .01, partial Eta squared = .02.
Further examination of the data from the follow-up tests did not reveal any
distinguishing trends (Figure 3). As an example, full-time faculty with no previous
experience awarded lower grades (2.09 average or slightly above a “C” letter
grade) while their part-time counterparts awarded an average letter grade of “B”
(3.14 average). However, when grades of faculty who had previously taught the
course 1-2 times were compared, full-time faculty awarded higher grades (3.16 or
slightly above a “B” average) while their part-time counterparts awarded an
average grade not quite reaching a “B” average (2.86). In a final comparison of
faculty who had previously taught a course 6-10 times, the grade difference was
very slight, even though reaching statistical significance.
Table 20. Summary of Tests of Between-Subjects Effects
(Research Question #2)
Faculty Group F-Test Statistic Significance
Faculty who taught the course 0
previous times
(FI, 76 = 25.05) p= .000*
Faculty who taught the course 1-2
previous times
(FI, 259 = 6.09) p= .01*
Faculty who taught the course 3-5
previous times
(FI, 498 = .60) p= .44
Faculty who taught the course 6-
10 previous times
(FI, 484 = 7.85) p= .01*
Faculty who taught the course 11
or more previous times
(FI, 1535 = 1.39) p= .24
* Sig. p < .05
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105
B Full-Tim e
□ Part-T im e
□ * sig. p < .05
N o 1-2 3-5 6-10 11+
Exp.* Tim es* Tim es Tim es* Tim es
T im es T au gh t C ou rse
Figure 3. Mean Grades by Faculty Employment Status and Times
Taught the Course
Additional investigation of the statistical significant main effect for number
of times faculty taught a course was conducted through a post-hoc test. The
Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances (Table 21) was significant (F10,
2863) = 1.84, p = .05, thus, equal variances could not be assumed. As a result, a
post-hoc procedure that did not assume equal variances (Dunnet C) was conducted.
Table 21. Levene ’ s Test of Equality of Error Variances
Dependent Variable: Grade Point _________
F dfl df2 Sig.
1.840 10 2863 .049
Tests the null hypothesis that the error variance of the dependent variable is equal across groups.
The Post-Hoc Test of Multiple Comparisons (Table 22) revealed four instances
where statistically significant variations occurred. First, the mean grade awarded
by the most experienced faculty (those who had taught the course 11 or more
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times) differed significantly with the mean grades awarded by more junior faculty
(those who had taught the course 1-2 times and those who had previously taught
the course 3-5 times). Statistical significance was also reached in the group of
faculty members who had taught the course 3-5 times with faculty who had
previously taught the course 6-10 times and with faculty who had no previous
experience teaching the course. Further examination revealed that faculty who had
taught a course 11 or more times awarded a mean grade slightly over a “C+”
average (2.76 grade point), while faculty who taught the course 1-2 times and those
who had taught the course 3-5 times awarded higher mean grades of 2.96 grade
point and 3.04 grade point, respectively (Figure 4). Also, the mean grade of faculty
who had previously taught a course 3-5 times (3.04 grade point) was higher than
the grade awarded by faculty members who taught the course 6-10 times (2.85
grade point) and those who had no previous experience teaching the course (2.68
grade point).
Table 22. Post-Hoc Test of Multiple Comparison
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
(I) how many
times taught
course
(J) how many
times taught
course
Mean
D ifference (I-
•J)
Std.
E rro r
Sig.
95% Confidence
Interval
Lower
Bound
Upper
Bound
Tukey HSD 0 0 -.10 .290 .999 -.92 .73
1-2 -.37 .276 .753 -1.16 .41
3-5 -.46 .273 .546 -1.24 .32
6-10 -.27 .273 .924 -1.05 .51
11 -more -.17 .271 .988 -.95 .60
0 0 .10 .290 .999 -.73 .92
1-2 -.27 .121 .192 -.62 .07
3-5 -.36* .114 .018 -.69 -.04
6-10 -.17 .114 .657 -.50 .15
11 -more -.08 .109 .981 -.39 .23
1-2 0 .37 .276 .753 -.41 1.16
0 .28 .121 .192 -.07 .62
3-5 -.08 .071 .847 -.29 .12
6-10 .11 .072 .679 -.10 .31
11-more .20* .063 .017 .02 .38
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107
Table 22 (continued).
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
(I) how many
times taught
course
(J) how many
times taught
course
Mean
Difference (I-
j)
Std.
E rror
Sig.
95% Confidence
Interval
Tukey HSD 3-5 0 .46 .273 .546 -.32 1.24
0 .36* .114 .018 .04 .69
1-2 .08 .071 .847 -.12 .29
6-10 .19* .060 .018 .02 .36
11-more .29* .048 .000 .15 .42
6-10 0 .27 .273 .924 -.51 1.05
0 .17 .114 .657 -.15 .50
1-2 -.11 .072 .679 -.31 .10
3-5 -.19* .060 .018 -.36 -.02
11-more .10 .049 .368 -.04 .23
11-more 0 .17 .271 .988 -.60 .95
0 .08 .109 .981 -.23 .39
1-2 -.20* .063 .017 -.38 -.02
3-5 -.29* .048 .000 -.42 -.15
6-10 -.10 .049 .368 -.23 .04
Dunnett C 0 0 -.10 .227 -.84 .65
1-2 -.37 .202 -1.05 .30.
3-5 -.46 .198 -1.13 21
6-10 -.27 .197 -.94 .40
11-more -.17 .195 -.83 .49
0 0 .10 .227 -.65 .84
1-2 -.28 .133 -.66 .11
3-5 -.36 .126 -.73 .01
6-10 -.17 .126 -.54 .19
11-more -.08 .121 -.43 .28
1-2 0 .37 .202 -.30 1.05
0 .28 .133 -.11 .66
3-5 -.08 .072 -.29 .12
6-10 .11 .071 -.10 .31
11-more .20* .064 .02 .38
3-5 0 .46 .198 -.21 1.13
0 .36 .126 -.01 .73
1-2 .08 .072 -.12 .29
6-10 .19* .059 .02 .36
11-more .29* .049 .15 .42
6-10 0 .27 .197 -.40 .94
0 .17 .126 -.19 .54
1-2 -.11 .071 -.31 .10
3-5 -.19* .059 -.36 -.02
11-more .10 .047 -.04 .23
11 -more 0 .17 .195 -.49 .83
0 .08 .121 -.28 .43
1-2 -.20* .064 -.38 -.02
3-5 -.29* .049 -.42 -.15
6-10 -.10 .047 -.23 .04
Based on observed means.
(*) The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.
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108
3.1 -
3 -U
^ 2.9 -L
•S I
^ 2.8
•o
0 3
& 2.7 4 -
2.6 4 -
2.5
B Mean Grade
N o Exp. 1-2 Times 3-5 Times 6-10 Times 11+ Times
Times Faculty Taught Course
Figure 4. Faculty Mean Grade by Number of Times Taught Course
Research Question #3
What is the relationship or interaction between faculty age, faculty
employment status, and the grades faculty award to evaluate student academic
outcomes? Specifically, does faculty age mediate the relationship between faculty
employment status and the grades they award? Descriptive statistics revealed that
there were 2,869 student records associated with lull- and part-time faculty; of that,
1,425 were associated with full-time faculty while 1,444 were associated with part-
timers (Table 23). Further, over 60 percent of the student sample (1,726 records)
was associated with faculty over the age of 50 and over one in three students was
associated with faculty between the ages of 51-60.
A Chi-Square (X2 ) test was conducted to evaluate whether there was a
relationship between the independent variables, faculty employment status and
faculty age (Table 24). The first variable, faculty employment status had two levels
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109
(full-time and part-time) while the second independent variable had six levels.
Faculty employment status and faculty age were found to be significantly related,
Pearson X (5, 2,869) = 355.44, p = .00, which indicated that the numbers were
independent and were valid for examination.
Table 23. Between-Subjects Factors (Research Question #3)
Value Label N
Employment Status 1 Full Time Faculty 1425
2 Part Time Faculty 1444
Age 1 30 or less 76
2 31-40 363
3 41-50 704
4 51-60 1081
5 61-70 609
6 71 - older 36
Table 24. Chi-Square Test (Research Question #3)
Value df Asymp. Sig.
(2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 355.437“ 5 .000
Likelihood Ratio 395.482 5 .000
Linear-by-Linear
Association
36.596 1 .000
N of Valid Cases 2869
a0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum
expected count is 17.88.
The means and standard deviations are presented in Table 26. While a
visual examination of the data doesn’t reveal large differences between mean
grades, there does appear to be a pattern that older faculty members award lower
grades. As an example, while the average grade awarded by faculty was 2.84, older
faculty, those between the age of 51-60, 61-70, and faculty age 71 or older,
awarded mean grades of 2.82, 2.72, and 2.44, respectively. By contrast, faculty
who were 50 or younger all awarded average grades above the group average.
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110
Table 25. Cross Tabulation (Employment Status and Faculty Age)
Employment Status
Total
Full-time
Faculty
Part-time
Faculty
Age 30 or less Count
% within age
% employment status
76
100.0%
5.3%
76
100.0%
2.6%
31-40 Count
% within age
% employment status
186
51.2%
13.1%
177
48.8%
12.3%
363
100.0%
12.7%
41-50 Count
% within age
% employment status
526
74.7%
36.9%
178
25.3%
12.3%
704
100.0%
24.5%
51-60 Count
% within age
% employment status
500
46.3%
35.1%
581
53.7%
40.2%
1081
100.0%
37.7%
61-70 Count
% within age %
employment status
186
30.5%
13.1%
423
69.5%
29.3%
609
100.0%
21.2%
71 - older Count
% within age
% employment status
27
75.0%
1.9%
9
25.0%
.6%
36
100.0%1
.3%
TOTAL
Count
% within age
% employment status
1425
49.7%
100.0%
1444
50.3%
100.0%
2869
100.0%
100.0%
Table 26. Descriptive Statistics (Mean and Student Deviations)
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
Employment
Status
Age Mean Std. Deviation N
Full-time Faculty 31-40 2.76 .948 186
41-50 2.89 .894 526
51-60 2.88 .982 500
61-70 2.82 1.053 186
71-older 2.56 .974 27
TOTAL 2.85 .956 1425
Part-time Faculty 30 or less 2.95 1.106 76
31-40 3.18 .930 177
41-50 2.96 .935 178
51-60 2.76 .914 581
61-70 2.68 .911 423
71-older 2.11 .601 9
TOTAL 2.82 .941 1444
TOTAL 30 or less 2.95 1.106 76
31-40 2.96 .961 363
41-50 2.90 .904 704
51-60 2.82 .948 1081
61-70 2.72 .958 609
71-older 2.44 .909 36
TOTAL 2.84 .949 2869
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I l l
A 2 x 6 ANOVA was conducted to evaluate what significant relationship or
interaction existed between the employment category (full-time or part-time) of
faculty employed by the LACCD, faculty age and grades faculty awarded to
evaluate students’ academic outcomes (Table 27). The results revealed a
significant interaction between faculty employment status and faculty age (F4,
2,858) = 6.87, p = .00, partial Eta squared = .01 and a significant main effect for
faculty age (F5, 2,858) = 4.87, p = .000, partial Eta squared = .01. The statistically
significant interaction between faculty employment status and faculty age indicated
a need for follow-up analysis. First, the independent variable, faculty age, was split
into groups consistent with the TRUCCS survey. Then, separate one-way
ANOVAs were conducted. A summary of the one-way ANOVA test results has
been provided at Table 28. The findings indicated significant differences in mean
grades awarded by full- and part-time faculty in age groups 31-40 and 51-60.
Table 27. Results of the ANOVA (Tests of Between-Subjects Effects)
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
Source Type III
Sum of
Squares
Df Mean
Square
F Sig. Partial
Eta
Squared
Noncent.
Parameter
Observed
Power*
Corrected
Mode
48.138b 10 4.814 5.432 .000 .019 54.317 1.000
Intercept 5342.863 1 5342.863 6028.704 .000 .678 6028.704 1.000
T EMPLOY .230 1 .230 .260 .610 .000 .260 .080
T AGE 21.571 5 4.314 4.868 .000 .008 24.340 .982
T EMPLOY*
T AGE
24.338 4 6.084 6.865 .000 .010 27.462 .994
Error 2532.867 2858 .886
Total 25659.000 2869
Corrected Total 2581.005 2868
“ “ Computed using alpha = .05
bR Squared = .019 (Adjusted R Squared = .015)
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1 1 2
Table 28. Summary o f Tests of Between-Subjects Effects
Faculty Group F-Test Statistic Significance
Below age 30 No full-time faculty
Age 31-40 (FI, 361 = 18.38) p= .000*
Age 41-50 (FI, 702 = .91) p= .34
Age 51-60 (FI, 1079 = 3.96) p= .049*
Age 61-70 (FI, 607 = 2.84) p= .09
Age 71 and older (FI, 3 4 = 1.65) P = .21
A review of the statistical significant faculty age groups, that is, those
between 31-40 and faculty between 51-60 years old, revealed no distinguishing
trends (Figure 5). In the first instance, full-time faculty between the ages of 31-40
awarded significantly lower grades (2.76 grade point) than part-time faculty (3.18
grade point); conversely, part-time faculty between the ages of 51-60 awarded
statistically significant but slightly lower grades than their full-time counterparts of
the same age (2.76 grade point versus 2.88 grade point, respectively). Moreover, a
complete view of the average grades awarded by both categories of faculty revealed
that younger adjuncts awarded higher grades than full-time faculty; however, once
faculty reached age 41-50, adjuncts awarded lower mean grades.
There was also a statistically significant main effect for faculty age that
required further investigation. The Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances
(Table 29) was significant (F10, 2858) = 2.81, p = .00, thus equal variances could
not be assumed. As a result, a post-hoc procedure that did not assume equal
variances were utilized (Table 30). The post-hoc test revealed four instances of
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113
statistically significant differences; between faculty between the ages of 31-40 with
faculty members between 51-60 and faculty 71 or older, and between faculty
between the ages of 41-50 with faculty members between 51-60 and faculty 71 or
older.
o
O h
u
■o
«
u
o
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Below 31-40* 41-50 51-60* 61-70
30
70+
■ Full-Time
□ Part-Time
□ * sig. p < .05
Faculty Age Group
Figure 5. Mean Grades by Employment Status and Faculty Age
Table 29. Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances
Dependent Variable: Grade Point _________
F dfl df2 Sig.
2.811 10 2858 .002
Tests the null hypothesis that the error variance of the dependent variable is equal across groups.
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114
Table 30. Post-Hoc Test o f Multiple Comparisons
Dependent Variable: Grade Point
(I) age (J) age
Mean Diff.erence
(1-J)
Std. E rror Sig.
95% Confidence
Interval
Lower
Bound
Upper
Bound
Tukey HSD 30 or less 31-40 -.02 .119 1.000 -.36 .32
41-50 .04 .114 .999 -.28 .37
51-60 .13 .112 .852 -.19 .45
61-70 .22 .115 .372 -.10 .55
71 - older .50 .190 .088 -.04 1.05
31-40 30 or less .02 .119 1.000 -.32 .36
41-50 .06 .061 .926 -.11 .23
51-60 .15 .057 .102 -.02 .31
61-70 .24* .062 .002 .06 .42
71 - older .52* .164 .020 .05 .99
41-50 30 or less -.04 .114 .999 -.37 .28
31-40 -.06 .061 .926 -.23 .11
51-60 .09 .046 .384 -.04 .22
61-70 .18* .052 .007 .03 .33
71 - older .46* .161 .049 .00 .92
51-60 30 or less -.13 .112 .852 -.45 .19
31-40 -.15 .057 .102 -.31 .02
41-50 -.09 .046 .384 -.22 .04
61-70 .09 .048 .376 -.04 .23
71 - older .37 .159 .180 -.08 .83
61-70 30 or less -.22 .115 .372 -.55 .10
31-40 -.24* .062 .002 -.42 -.06
41-50 -.18* .052 .007 -.33 -.03
51-60 -.09 .048 .376 -.23 .04
71 - older .28 .161 .510 -.18 .74
71 - older 30 or less -.50 .190 .088 -1.05 .04
31-40 -.52* .164 .020 -.99 -.05
41-50 -.46* .161 .049 -.92 .00
51-60 -.37 .159 .180 -.83 .08
61-70 -.28 .161 .510 -.74 .18
Dunnett C 30 or less 31-40 -.02 .137 -.42 .38
41-50 .04 .131 -.34 .43
51-60 .13 .130 -.25 .51
61-70 .22 .133 -.16 .61
71 - older .50 .198 -.09 1.09
31-40 30 or less .02 .137 -.38 .42
41-50 .06 .061 -.11 .23
51-60 .15 .058 -.02 .31
61-70 .24* .064 .06 .42
71 - older .52* .160 .04 1.00
41-50 30 or less -.04 .131 -.43 .34
31-40 -.06 .061 -.23 .11
51-60 .09 .045 -.04 .22
61-70 .18* .052 .03 .33
71 - older .46 .155 -.01 .93
51-60 30 or less -.13 .130 -.51 .25
31-40 -.15 .058 -.31 .02
41-50 -.09 .045 -.22 .04
61-70 .09 .048 -.05 .232
71 - older .37 .154 -.09 .84
61-70 30 or less -.22 .133 -.61 .16
31-40 -.24* .064 -.42 -.06
41-50 -.18* .052 -.33 -.03
51-60 -.09 ,048 -.23 .05
71 - older .28 .156 -.19 .75
71 - older 30 or less -.50 .198 -1.09 .09
31-40 -.52* .160 -1.00 -.04
41-50 -.46 .155 -.93 .01
51-60 -.37 .154 -.84 .09
61-70 | -.28 .156 -.75 .19
Based on observed means.
(*) The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.
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115
3.50 -r
3.00
I
’ © 2.00 4
d ,
| 1.50 J
0.50 4
Below 30 31-40* 51-60* 61-70 70+ 41-50
Faculty Age
□ Mean Grade
Figure 6. Mean Grade by Faculty Age
In an examination of the cases where statistically significant differences
were found, older faculty members were associated with lower mean grades. In the
first example, faculty age 71 or older had a mean grade point of 2.44, significantly
lower than the mean grade awarded by faculty between the ages of 31 -40 (2.96
grade point) and faculty aged 41-50 (2.90 grade point). A second example revealed
that faculty between the ages of 61-70 were associated with a significantly lower
mean grade point (2.72 grade point) than faculty between the ages of 31-40 (2.96
grade point) and faculty aged 41-50 (2.90 grade point). Finally, a review of all the
age groups revealed an overall negative correlation between faculty age and student
grades (Figure 6).
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116
CHAPTER 5
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter contains an introduction to the study, a summary of the
findings, study conclusions, and concludes with study recommendations. In order
to respond to calls for more empirical research on the effectiveness of part-time
faculty, this study examined whether there were significant relationships or
interactions between faculty employment status, faculty teaching experience, the
number of times faculty had previously taught a course, and faculty age with grades
faculty awarded to evaluate students’ academic outcomes.
Introduction
Community college administrators have been hiring significant numbers of
part-time faculty in response to budget shortfalls (Cohen & Brawer, 1989), rising
student enrollments (Anderson, 2002), and increasing community needs (Lankard,
1993). To comprehend the magnitude of how much this faculty segment has
expanded, the American Federation of Teachers’ reported in 2003 that part-time
instructive faculty in two-year institutions had increased by approximately 320
percent between the 1970s and the end of the 1990s (AFT, 2003); they accounted
for slightly more than one-half of the total faculty in 1988 to more than six out of
ten, today (Anderson, 2002; Cohen & Brawer, 2003). However, despite this
explosive growth, a common complaint has been the lack of empirical research on
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117
the effectiveness of these faculty members in the classroom (Leslie & Gappa,
2002).
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to examine what relationships and
interactions existed between specific faculty characteristics; that is, faculty
employment status, teaching experience, the number of times faculty taught a
particular course, and the age of faculty with the grades they awarded to evaluate
students’ academic outcomes. To investigate the existence of any relationships,
two-way ANOVAs were performed on data collected through the TRUCCS
project. In cases where statistical significant interactions were discovered, separate
one-way ANOVAs were conducted to further examine the differences.
Additionally, in instances where statistically significant main effects discovered,
follow-up post-hoc tests were performed.
Summary of Findings
Hypothesis 1
There will not be a significant relationship between faculty employment
status and the course grades faculty award to evaluate students’ academic
outcomes.
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118
A 2 x 6 ANOVA was performed to evaluate whether a statistically
significant relationship or interaction existed between the independent variables,
faculty employment status (full-time or part-time) and length of teaching
experience, and the dependent variable, grades faculty awarded to evaluate
students’ academic outcomes. Results of the ANOVA found insufficient evidence
to reject the null hypothesis (FI, 2873) = .65, p = .42, partial Eta squared = .00;
thus, there were no statistically significant differences in the grades that full- or
part-time faculty awarded to evaluate students’ academic outcomes.
Hypothesis 2
There is no statistically significant interaction or relationship between faculty
employment status, teaching experience and the grades faculty awarded to evaluate
students’ academic outcomes.
First, a Chi-Square Test found that faculty employment status and faculty
teaching experience were significantly related, Pearson X (4, N = 2,883) = 158.62,
p = .000 which indicated that the data variables were independent and were valid
for comparison. Then, a 2 x 6 ANOVA was performed and the results revealed a
statistically significant interaction (F4, 2873) = 9.38, p = .00, partial Eta squared =
.01 and a statistically significant main effect for length of teaching experience (F4,
2873) = 5.24, p = .00, partial Eta squared = .01. These findings were not consistent
with the null hypothesis.
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119
To investigate the statistically significant interaction between the independent
variables, the independent variable, faculty teaching experience, was first split into
the six groups consistent with the TRUCCS segregation. Then, separate one-way
ANOVAs were conducted. According to the summary results (Table 12), there
were three cases where the grades awarded by full- and part-time faculty were
statistically different; when faculty had 1-3 years of teaching experience, when
faculty had 7-10 years of experience, and when faculty had 21 or more years of
teaching experience. From an examination of the mean grade data in Figure 1,
there were mixed results and no distinguishing trends. For example, full-time
faculty with 1-3 years and 21 or more years of teaching experience awarded higher
grades than their part-time counterpart. By contrast, adjuncts awarded higher
grades than full-timers in the faculty group with 7-10 years of teaching experience.
A follow-up examination was also performed on the statistically significant
main effect for teaching experience. The results the Post-Hoc Test of Multiple
Comparisons (Table 14) revealed three instances where grade differences reached
statistical significance; the first being the grades awarded by faculty members with
21 or more years of teaching experience and the grades awarded by faculty with 1-3
years and faculty with 4-6 years of teaching experience and the second between the
grades of faculty with 11-20 years of teaching experience and faculty with 1-3
years of experience (Figure 2). In the first instance, the mean grade of faculty with
21 or more years of experience was 2.70; as compared with a mean grade point of
2.96 for faculty members with 1-3 years of teaching experience and a grade point
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120
of 3.09 for faculty with 4-6 years of experience (Table 10). In the second case of
addition, faculty with 11-20 years of experience also awarded significantly lower
grades (a 2.77 mean grade point) than faculty who reported that they had between
4-6 years of teaching experience (a 3.09 mean grade point) (Table 10). Finally, the
data in Figure 2 revealed an overall negative correlation between teaching
experience and grades that faculty awarded to evaluate students’ academic
outcomes.
Hypothesis 3
There is no significant relationship or interaction between the number of
times full-time and part-time faculty members teach a particular course with the
grades they awarded to evaluate students’ academic outcomes.
First, a Chi-Square Test found that faculty employment status and the number
of times faculty taught a course were significantly related, Pearson X2(5, N =
2,874) = 174.85 p = .00, which indicated that the data were independent and were
valid for comparison. Then, a 2 x 5 ANOVA was performed and the results
revealed a statistically significant interaction between the independent variables
(F4,2,863) = 9.30, p = .00, partial Eta squared = .01 and a statistically significant
main effect for length of teaching experience (F4, 2873) = 5.24, p = .00, partial Eta
squared = .01. These findings were not consistent with the a priori proposition.
To examine the statistically significant interaction, the independent
variable, number of times faculty taught a course, was first split into the five groups
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121
consistent with the TRUCCS segregation of this survey item. Then, separate one
way ANOVAs were conducted; a summary of which is provided in Table 20.
According to the summary results, statistically significant interactions were found
in three cases; where faculty had never previously taught a course; where faculty
had taught a course 1-2 times; and where faculty had previously taught a course 6-
10 times. Further examination of the data revealed mixed results and no
distinguishing trends (Figure 3). As an example, in the group when faculty had no
previous teaching experience, the grades awarded by full-time faculty were
significantly lower than part-timers. By contrast, when faculty had previously
taught a course 1-2 times and 6-10 times, just the opposite was found; full-time
faculty members were associated with higher grades than part-time faculty.
The statistically significant main effect for the independent variable,
number of times faculty taught a course, also required investigation. The results of
the Post-Hoc Test of Multiple Comparisons (Table 22) revealed four instances
where statistical significance was reached: between faculty groups who had taught
the course 11 or more times and those who had taught a course 1-2 times and 3-5
times; between faculty groups who had taught the course 6-10 with groups who had
taught a course 3-5 times; and between faculty groups who had taught the course 3-
5 times and faculty with no previous experience. On the other hand, it is apparent
that faculty who had previous experience teaching a course 3-5 times awarded the
highest grades and students’ academic outcomes dropped to a low point when
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12 2
faculty had taught a course 11 or more times. Finally, the data revealed that faculty
at the midpoint awarded the highest grades.
Hypothesis 4
There will not be a significant relationship or interaction between faculty
employment status and the ages of full- and part-time faculty members with the
grades they award to evaluate students’ academic outcomes.
First, a Chi-Square Test found that faculty employment status and faculty
teaching experience were significantly related, Pearson X2 (5, N = 2,869) = 355.43,
p = .00, which indicated that the numbers were independent and were valid for
comparison. Then, a 2 x 6 ANOVA was performed and the results revealed a
statistically significant interaction (F4, 2,858) = 6.87, p = .00, partial Eta squared =
.01 and a statistically significant main effect for faculty age (F5, 2,858) = 4.87, p =
.00, partial Eta squared = .01. These findings were not consistent with the a priori
prediction.
The finding of a statistically significant interaction between the independent
variables required further analysis. First, the independent variable, faculty age, was
split into the six groups consistent with the TRUCCS segregation of this survey
item. Then, separate one-way ANOVAs were conducted; a summary of which is
provided in Table 28 (only five one-way ANOVAs were performed because the
group of faculty age 30 or below did not contain any full-time faculty). According
to the summary results, there were two cases where the grade differences awarded
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123
by full- and part-time faculty reached statistically significance: when faculty
members were between the ages of 31 -40 and when they were between the ages of
51-60. Examination of the data at Figure 5 revealed mixed results and no
distinguishing trends. For example, when faculty members were between the ages
of 31-40, full-timers were associated with lower grades part-timers; however, when
faculty members were between the ages of 51-60, just the opposite occurred. In
this instance, full-time faculty members were associated with higher grades than
their part-time counterparts.
A follow-up examination was also performed to investigate the statistical
significance of the main effect for faculty age. The post-hoc test revealed four
instances of statistically significant differences: between faculty between the ages
of 31-40 with faculty members between the ages of 51-60 and faculty who were 71
or older; and between faculty between the ages of 41-50 with faculty members 51-
60 and faculty who were 71 or older. An examination of the data in Table 26
revealed that older faculty members were associated with lower mean grades. As
an example, faculty age 71 or older had a mean grade point of 2.44 significantly
lower than faculty between the ages of 31 -40 (2.96 grade point) and faculty aged
41-50 (2.90 grade point). A second example revealed that faculty between the ages
of 61-70 were associated with a significantly lower mean grade point (2.72 grade
point) than faculty between the ages of 31-40 (2.96 grade point) and faculty aged
41-50 (2.90 grade point). In addition, a review of all the age groups revealed a
negative correlation between faculty ages and awarded graded (Figure 6).
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124
Conclusions
The primary purpose of this study was to examine what relationships and
interactions existed between specific faculty characteristics such as faculty
employment status, teaching experience, the number of times faculty previously
taught a course, faculty age, and the grade they award to evaluate student academic
outcomes. Overall, study results indicated: (1) no statistically significant
differences in the grades full- or part-time faculty award to evaluate students’
academic outcomes; (2) a statistically significant interaction existed between
faculty employment status and faculty teaching experience; (3) a statistically
significant interaction existed between faculty employment status and the number
of times faculty taught a course; (4) a statistically significant interaction existed
between faculty employment status and faculty age; and (5) a statistically
significant main effects existed for faculty teaching experience, the number of
times faculty taught a course, and faculty age.
Faculty Employment Status
The finding of no statistically significant relationship between the grades
full-time or part-time faculty awarded as an evaluation of students’ academic
outcomes supported the null hypothesis. This finding was consistent with the result
of the Bolge (1995) study which found no statistically significant differences in the
learning outcomes in classrooms taught by either full-time or part-time faculty.
However, upon further comparison, there were slight differences between the two
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125
studies. While both studies were conducted in community colleges; the Bolge
(1995) study sample consisted of 50 remedial students from mathematics classes,
attending courses at one urban college campus. By comparison, this study
analyzed an expanded study sample; 3,377 students, the majority of whom were
enrolled in English courses. Student surveys for this study were also collected
from students who were enrolled in both remedial and non-remedial courses. Thus,
while Bolge suggested his study results may not be generalizable beyond
developmental classes (14), this study’s expansion of the study sample will permit
wider generalization to students enrolled in non-remedial courses. Moreover, the
findings of this study appear to be generally congruent with recent medical research
(Murray, Safran, Rogers, Inui, Change, & Montgomery, 2000) who found that
“part-time physicians perform as well as full-time physicians in most aspects of
primary care” (327). On the other hand, this study’s results do not support earlier
studies which found that the mean grade awarded by part-time faculty were higher
than the average grade awarded by full-time faculty members (Sonner, 2000) or
that students were substantially more likely to receive higher grades from part-time
faculty than from full-timers and that part-timers were more likely to award a grade
of “A” than from a full-time professor (McArthur, 1999).
Years of Teaching Experience
The study found a significant interaction between faculty employment
status and teaching experience. However, the results were mixed and there were no
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126
distinguishing trends. As an example, in one group, part-time faculty members
were associated with higher mean grade points (faculty with 7-10 years of teaching
experience). However, upon further analysis, it was discovered that the sample
sizes of the groups were much smaller than the sizes of the other groups in the
sample; part-time group (N = 58) and the full-time group (N = 116). Thus, the
results of the analysis could have been affected by grades awarded by only 1 or 2
faculty members.
Interestingly, this study found a statistically significant main effect for
teaching experience. Further investigation revealed an overall trend where more
experienced faculty members were associated with lower academic outcomes
(Table 10). This result raises two questions. First, does this finding mean that the
longer faculty members remain in the educational institution, or get older, that they
become stricter in their use of grades to evaluate academic outcomes? Or, a second
question can be asked: Does this finding of a statistically significant relationship
mean that as faculty gain teaching experience, that their awarding of lower grades
means that students are learning less and the older faculty members have become
less effective as teachers?
A search of the literature did not uncover any empirical research to develop
an answer to the first question. As for the second question, a literature search
found contrasting views. In addition, the researcher was unable to find research
analyzing teaching experience in a higher education environment; however, the
literature search uncovered empirical research studying this topic in the K-12
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127
environment and in the workplace. As examples, there are research that have found
that teaching experience enhances student learning; that experience aids the older
faculty members improve as teachers because of their knowledge and
implementation of effective pedagogical techniques (Blackburn & Lawrence, 1986;
Perry, Menec, Struthers, Hechter, Schonwetter, & Menges, 1997) and a positive
relationship exists between teaching experience and student achievement
(Greenwald, Hedges, & Laine, 1996). Moreover, in two reviews the first a review
of 109 studies which contained teacher experience as a production function,
Hanushek (1986) found that 30 percent of the studies contained a statistically
significant positive relationship between experience and achievement (1161); in the
second, Hanushek (1997) reviewed 90 publications which contained 377 separate
production functions estimates (142) and found that 29 percent of the studies also
contained a statistically significant positive relationship between experience and
achievement (144).
By contrast, research also exists disputing the value of classroom
experience. As an example, Hanushek (1986) discovered that 6 percent of the
studies in his review found a statistically significant negative relationship between
experience and achievement and his more recent study, Hanushek (1997) found that
5 percent of the studies reflected a negative relationship. Further, in an
examination of the relationship between experience and physician performance,
Choudhry, Fletcher, and Soumerai (2005) found the existence of a negative
relationship, thus supporting the findings of an earlier study by Hartz, Kuhn, and
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128
Pulido (1999) which also found a negative relationship between experience and
physician performance.
Number of Times Faculty Taught a Course
The study found a statistically significant interaction between faculty
employment status and the number of times faculty taught a course and a
statistically significant relationship main effect for the number of times faculty
taught a course. Of the statistically significant cases, all three contained small
sample sizes: the one case where part-time faculty awarded higher grades consisted
of very small samples sizes in both faculty groups (N = 34 for full-time and N = 44
for part-time); where faculty taught a course 1-2 times (N = 86 for full-time and N
= 175 for part-time); and where faculty taught a course 6-10 times (N = 354 for
full-time and N = 132 for part-time). Thus, results could be easily skewed by one
or two faculty members.
Faculty Age
This study found a statistically significant interaction between faculty
employment status and faculty age and a statistically significant main effect for
faculty age. However, follow-up tests of the statistically significant interaction
revealed mixed results and no distinguishing trends.
On the other hand, an examination of the statistically significant main effect
for faculty age was also conducted and there appears to be a negative correlation
between faculty age and the grades faculty members awarded to evaluate academic
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129
outcomes. While the study by Feldman and Tumley (2001) found that job
satisfaction and professional commitment were higher among faculty age 50-plus
and that older faculty demonstrated more positive job attitudes, Blackburn and
Lawrence (1986) suggested a decline in teaching performance could occur as
faculty grew older and questions about the teaching effectiveness of older faculty
members could arise because they may be less willing to try new techniques or
contemporary equipment. These findings were corroborated by more recent
research by Choudhry, Fletcher, and Soumerai (2005) who reported that older
physicians may be less familiar with new strategies and may be less willing than
younger physicians to employ medical advancements.
Implications for the Community College
As the largest employer of part-time faculty in higher education, where
estimates of adjuncts on community college campuses range as high as 64 percent
(Akroyd, Jaeger, Jackowski, and Jones (2004), there has been surprising limited
research on this faculty segment (Feldman & Turnley, 2001). As a result,
institutional administrators have been saddled with anecdotal evidence or research
focusing on such matters as fiscal constraints instead of research comparing the
teaching effectiveness of full- and part-time faculty (McArthur, 1999).
This study adds to the evidence that there are no statistically significant
differences in the grades that part- and full-time faculty award to evaluate students’
academic outcomes. However, there were also findings of statistical significant
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130
interactions and relationships between faculty employment status, faculty teaching
experience, the number of times faculty taught a course, faculty age, and the grades
faculty awarded. The fact that there was a lack of distinguishing trends during
further investigations of the statistically significant interactions should provide
assurances to institutional administrators that both categories of faculty are
consistent in their classroom activities.
The study also found statistically significant main effects that could be
troubling. If these results document a situation where faculty become less effective
in the classroom as they gain teaching experience or get older, then institutional
administrators need to consider intervention actions to assist these faculty members
keep classroom effectiveness at a high level. One solution could follow the
suggestion of medical researchers (Choudhry, Fletcher, & Soumerai, 2005) that
experienced faculty member should not be exempt from professional development
and they must be informed and that they practice the latest proven pedagogical
methods.
Recommendations
One recommendation for faculty improvement in higher education would be
the inclusion of part-time faculty in professional development courses. While most
institutions normally offer these courses to their full-time faculty, it is usually not
offered to part-timers. Professional development could also be especially important
to new faculty. By including an orientation course or institutional mentoring for
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131
part-time faculty, they will be able to advise students of the availability of campus
services, such as tutoring and counseling (Schuetz, 2002) and there may be a drop
in the concerns of less experienced faculty over their low internal locus of control
(Perry, Menec, Struthers, Hechter, Schonwetter, & Menges, 1997) or their lack of
confidence in their teaching abilities (Boice, 1991). While experienced teachers
have learned what works and doesn’t work in the classroom, the “novice
pedagogue” must still leam these distinctions (Blackburn & Lawrence , 1986, 273).
However, while there are different types of professional development training
courses available to institutions, they must be prudent in their choices. As an
example, Sunal et al. (2001) has found that workshops of short duration, less than
one day, with little or no follow-up have not shown to be effectiveness.
It also makes sense for institutions to hire part-time faculty to perform
institutional duties or else to pay some of their current part-time faculty to perform
administrative and other necessary institutional duties. With the reduction of full
time professors on college campuses, quality of education can suffer as full-time
faculty are stretched too thin, with less numbers of faculty members attempting to
perform the myriad of administrative and student-related functions that are
necessary to continue the operations of the institution (Gappa & Leslie, 1993).
Choosing the option of hiring part-timers to perform institutional duties will
continue the practice of allowing faculty with special credentials or expertise to
focus on teaching, but it will also reduce some of the institutional burdens from
full-time faculty.
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132
Recommendations for Future Research
The results of this cross-sectional study indicate that there is no statistically
significant relationship between faculty employment status (full- and part-time) and
the grades they award to evaluate students’ academic outcomes. However, since
this study only evaluated successful academic outcomes, future research should
evaluate the effects of faculty employment on student drop-out rates. Further, the
fact that this study is cross-sectional requires follow-on longitudinal studies to
identify whether persistence, retention, transfer or bachelor attainment rates differ
for students taught by full- or part-time faculty. Research should be conducted to
determine whether students who indicated an aspiration to graduate from a 4-year
college do, indeed, graduate from these institutions. Follow-up faculty studies
should also be conducted to determine whether the success rates of part-time
faculty who utilize pedagogical techniques such as cooperative learning differ from
success rates of faculty who do not utilize these techniques. Finally, future
research should be conducted to determine whether class size is a moderating factor
in the grades that full- or part-time faculty award to evaluate students’ academic
outcomes.
Limitations
The study is limited by the fact that all student and faculty respondents were
from a large, urban community college district, the Los Angeles Community
College District (LACCD). As a result, data collected through the TRUCCS
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133
student and faculty surveys and the statistical analyses conducted may not be
representative of all community colleges. Faculty data was collected through self-
reporting of their employment status, years of teaching experience, and the number
of times they previously taught the course. Neither the LACCD nor the individual
campuses were asked to confirm the information provided by faculty. In addition,
the TRUCCS student and faculty surveys were not originally designed to make
specific comparisons between faculty demographics and student achievement. As
an example, the categories in the TRUCCS student survey for age data was not
consistent with the faculty age categories in the TRUCCS faculty survey. The
reporting period was one year. This restricts the analysis to the amount of data
collected. The sample of institutions was from a community college system in a
large, urban setting. There was a possibility that different findings could have
emerged if the sample was stratified to include community colleges in other
environments.
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APPENDIX A
TRUCCS COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENT SURVEY
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Community College Student Survey
Dear Student:
This information is being collected by researchers from the University of Southern California and
the University of California at Los Angeles in conjunction with the Los Angeles Community
College District as part of a large study of community college students in Los Angeles. You have
been selected as a participant in a multi-year project. Your cooperation will assist researchers to
help Los Angeles Community College students to be successful in their educational pursuits. Your
assistance is crucial to the project; we thank you for your participation in this important research.
DIRECTIONS: Please answer all questions as completely and accurately as possible.
Social Security Number: __
Name: _________________
Your primary email address:
Your phone number: _____
We want to follow your progress for the next two years; yet we realize that many students will
move from time to time. Please provide the names of two people who are likely to know your
address even if you move. We request the name, address, and phone number of two persons.
Contact 1: A relative or friend who does
not live with you and who is likely to
Know your address at all times:
Name: ____________________________
Address: ___________________________
City, State, Zip: _____________________
Phone Number; _____________________
Email address: ______________________
Contact 2 : Another relative or friend who
does not live with you and who is likely to
know your address at all times:
Name: _____________________________
Address: ___________________________
City, State, Zip: _____________________
Phone Number: ______________________
Email address: _____
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149
1. Below are some reasons that might have influenced your decision to attend this particular
college. How important was each reason in your decision to come here?
(Circle one for each statement)
7 - Very Unimportant 6 - Unimportant 5 - Slightly Unimportant 4 - Not Sure
3 - Slight Important 2 - Important 1 - Very Important
May parents wanted me to come here. 7 6 5 4 3 2
My spouse, partner or other family member wanted me to
come here. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college has a good reputation. 7 6 5 4 3 2
I wanted to so to a different college than manv of mv friends. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college has good social activities. 7 6 5 4 3 2
I couldn’t find a job. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college is affordable. 7 6 5 4 3 2
A high school or other counselor advised me. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college is close to my home. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college’s graduates get good jobs. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college’s students transfer to good 4-year schools. 7 6 5 4 3 2
I couldn’t find anything better to do. 7 6 5 4 3 2
I want to get a better job. 7 6 5 4 3 2
My friends are attending here. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college is close to where I work. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college offers educational programs of special interest to me
that other colleges do NOT have. 7 6 5 4 3 2
I want to get a college degree. 7 6 5 4 3 2
To learn English for work. 7 6 5 4 3 2
My employer encouraged me to enroll here. 7 6 5 4 3 2
This college offers the program or certificate I need for work. 7 6 5 4 3 2
2. How many of your closest personal friends are also currently attending this college?
(Mark one)
None of my closest friends O
One of my closest friends O
A few of my closest friends O
About half of my closest friends O
Most of my closest friends O
All of my closest friends O
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3. In general, what do the following people think about this particular college?
(Circle one for each statement.)
5 - An excellent college 4 - A good college
2 - A poor college 1 - Does not apply
3 - An average college
You 5 4 3 2
Your closest friends 5 4 3 2
Your spouse or partner 5 4 3 2
Your parents or guardians 5 4 3 2
Your other relatives 5 4 3 2
Your high school teachers 5 4 3 2
Others 5 4 3 2
4. Which of the following statements best describes your college plans for next semester?
(Mark one.)
I will attend only this college. O
I will attend this college and 1 other college. O
I will attend this college and 2 or more other colleges. O
I will not attend here, but I will attend 1 other college. O
I will not attend here, but I will attend 2 or more other colleges. O
I will not attend any college. O
5. Where did you attend school?
(Mark ah that apply in each column.)
United States Another Country
Elementary school or equivalent (Ages 4 to 11) O O
Junior high school (Ages 12 to 14) O O
High school (Ages 15 to 18) O O
College O O
6. Not including this college, how many other colleges or universities have you ever attended?
(Mark one.)
None (I have attended only this college) O
1 other O
2 - 3 others O
4 or more others O
7. How many credits have you earned at this college in previous semesters? (Mark one.)
None O 10-27 O
1-3 O 28-36 O
4-9 O 37-60 O
10-18 O More than 60 O
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8. Since leaving high school, have you ever taken courses at any other institution?
(Mark aH that apply.)
For Credit Not for Credit
Yes, at another community or junior college. 0 O
Yes, at a four-year college or university. O O
Yes at a high school. O 0
Yes, at a vocational or trade school. 0 O
Yes, at an adult school. 0 O
9. In addition to this college, are you taking courses at another school or college this
semester?
(Mark all that apply.)
Yes, at another community college. 0
Yes, at a four-year college or university. 0
Yes, at a high school. 0
Yes, at a vocational or trade school. 0
Yes, at an adult school. 0
10. As things stand today, do you think you will... (Circle one for each statement.)
5 - Definitely Not 4 - Probably Not 3 - Maybe 2 - Probably 1 - Definitely
Change your career choice? 5 4 3 2
Graduate with honors? 5 4 3 2
Play varsity/intercollegiate athletics? 5 4 3 2
Get a bachelor’s degree? 5 4 3 2
Permanently stop attending college? 5 4 3 2
Leave this college temporarily and return later? 5 4 3 2
Transfer to another community college? 5 4 3 2
Transfer to a 4-year college or university? 5 4 3 2
Develop close new relationships with students at this college? 5 4 3 2
Talk regularly with the instructors at this college? 5 4 3 2
Change your college major? 5 4 3 2
11. Indicate all college degrees earned (if any). (Mark all that apply.)
United States Another Country
Associate degree (A.A., or equivalent) O
Bachelor’s degree (B.A., B.S., etc.) O
Graduate degree (M.A., M.S., Ph.D., Ed.D.,
J.D., M.D., etc.) O
Certificate O
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12. If there were no obstacles, what is the highest academic degree you would like to attain in
your lifetime? (Mark one. )
Will take classes, but do not intend to earn a degree O
Vocational certificate O
Associate (A.A., or equivalent) 0
Bachelor’s degree (B.A., B.S., etc.) 0
At least a Bacheor’s, maybe more O
Master’s degree (M.A., M.S., etc.) 0
Doctoral degree (Ph.D., Ed.D., J.D., etc.) O
Medical degree (M.D., D.D.S., D.V.M., etc.) 0
13. Approximately how many times in the oast 7 days, did you: (Circle one for each statement.)
0 - 0, or didn’t have time 1 - 1 time 2 - 2 times 3 - 3 times
4 - 4 times 5 - 5 times or more
Skip a class? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Talk with an instructor before or after a class? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Talk with an instructor during office hours? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Use email or the Internet for homework? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Help another student understand homework? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Study in small groups outside of class? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Speak with an academic counselor? 0 1 2 3 4 5
14. For this course onlv. approximately how manv times in the past 7 davs. did you:
(Circle one for each statement.)
0 - 0, or didn’t have time 1 - 1 time 2 - 2 times 3-- 3 times
4 - 4 times 5 - 5 times or more
Work in small groups during class time? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Telephone or email another student to ask questions
about your studies? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Ask the instructor questions? 0 1 2 3 4 5
Speak up during class discussion? 0 1 2 3 4 5
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15. In the past 7 days, approximately how many hours did you:
(Circle one for each statement.)
0 - 0, none or didn’t have time 1 - Less than 1 hour 2 -1 -2 hours 3 -3 -5 hours
4 -6 -1 0 hours 5 -1 1 -2 0 hours 6-2 1 -3 5 hours 7-36-45 hours 8 - 46 hours or more
Work at a job? 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Do housework or childcare? 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Watch TV? 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Spend on this campus (including time in class)? 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Spend talking with students about things not related
to a course? 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Study alone in the college library? 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Study with students from this course? 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Study with students from other courses (not this course)? 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
16. How large a problem do you expect each of the following to be while getting your
education at this college? (Circle one for each statement.)
1 - Not a problem 2 -
4 - Large problem 5
■ Small problem 3 - Medium problem
- Very large problem
Parking
Transportation (access to public transportation, sharing cars, etc.)
Family responsibilities (e.g., child care, parent care)
Job-related responsibilities
Paying for college
Scheduling classes for next semester
Understanding the English language
Difficulty of classes
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
17. How often do you use English with the following people? (Circle one for each statement.)
1 - Never 2 - Occasionally 3 - Half of the time 4 - Most of the time 5 - All of the time
With my parents 1 2 3 4 5
With friends 1 2 3 4 5
With teachers or professors at this college 1 2 3 4 5
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154
18. How often do you use a language other than English with the following people?
(Circle one for each statement.)
1 - Never 2 - Occasionally 3 - Half of the time 4 - Most of the time 5 - All of the time
With my parents 1 2 3 4 5
With friends 1 2 3 4 5
With teachers or professors at this college 1 2 3 4 5
19. How well are you able to do the following in English? (Circle one for each item.)
1 - Not at all 2 - With difficulty 3 - Fairly well 4 - Very well
Read
Write
Understand a college lecture
Read a college text book
Write an essay exam
Write a term paper
Participate in class discussions
Communicate with instructors
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
20. Is English your native language? (Mark one.) Yes O
No O
Go to question 22
Continue to question 21
21. How well are you able to do the following in vour native language?
(Circle one for each item.)
1 - Not at all 2 - With difficulty 3 - Fairly well 4 - Very well
Read
Write
Understand a college lecture
Read a college text book
Write an essay exam
Write a term paper
Participate in class discussions
Communicate with instructors
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
22. How long does it take you to travel to this college? (Mark one.)
Less than 15 minutes 0
15 to 30 minutes O
31 to 45 minutes 0
46 to 60 minutes 0
Between 1 and 2 hours O
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155
More than 2 hours O
23. Do you have a disability? (Mark all that apply.)
Hearing O
Speech O
Mobility impaired O
Attention deficit disorder O
Psychological disorder O
Learning disability O
Vision problem that cannot be corrected by
Glasses or contact lenses O
Other O
No disabilities O
24. What was your average grade in high school? (Mark one.)
A or A+ (Extraordinary) O
A- (Superior Quality) O
B+ (Excellent) O
B- (Good) O
C+ (Above Average) O
C (Average) O
C- (Below Average) O
D or lower (Poor) O
25. Before this semester, what mathematics courses have you taken? Include courses in high
school or previous college work. (Mark all that apply.)
Basic math, Business math or Pre-algebra O
Algebra I O
Geometry O
Algebra II O
Trigonometry O
Pre-calculus O
Calculus O
26. Before this semester, what since courses have you taken? Include courses in high school
or previous college work. (Mark all that apply.)
General Biology O
Chemistry O
Physics 0
Biology specialty (i.e., microbiology, genetics, botany,
Cell biology, marine biology, etc.) o
Other Earth science (i.e., geology, meteorology, etc.) o
27. With whom do you live while attending this college? (Mark all that apply.)
With my spouse or partner O
With my parents or guardians O
With my children/stepchildren O
With siblings (brother(s) and/or sister(s)) O
With other relatives O
With a roommate(s) or a friend(s) O
I live alone O
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156
28. Your gender: Male O
Female O
29. How old will you be on December 31 of this year?
16 years or younger O 21-24 O
17 O 25-29 O
18 O 30-39 O
19 O 40-54 O
20 O 55 or older O
30. What is your ethnic group(s)? (Mark all that apply.)
Chinese O
Filipino O
Japanese O
Korean O
Thai O
Loatian O
Cambodian O
Vietnamese O
South Asian (Indian Subcontinent) O
Arab O
African-American/Black O
Mexican O
Mexican-American/Chicano O
South American O
Central American O
Other Latino/Hispanic O
Alaskan Native O
American Indian O
Pacific Islander/Samoan, Hawaiian, or Guamanian O
Other Pacific Islander O
Caucasian/White O
Other O
31. Are you currently married? Yes O
No O
32 Who is(are) the primary wage earner(s) in your household? (Mark ah that apply.)
Yourself O
Partner/Spouse O
Parents/Guardians O
Children/Stepchildren O
Other O
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157
33. How many of your children/stepchildren are living in your household? (Mark one. )
None O 3-4 O
1-2 O 5 or more O
34. Excluding yourself, how may people (children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, parents,
etc.) are you financially supporting? (Mark one for each item.)
None 1-2 3-4 5 or more
Under 5 years of age O O O O
5 to 18 years of age O O O O
Over 18 years of age O O O O
35. Which one of the following best describes your employment status at this time?
(Mark one.)
Employed full-time (including self-employed) O
Employed part-time (including self-employed) O
Not employed but looking for work O
Not employed and not presently looking for work O
36. How do you think of yourself? (Mark one.)
Primarily as a student who is employed O
Primarily as an employee who is going to college O
Primarily as a parent who is going to college O
Solely as a student O
36. For the following items, please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with the
following statements. (Circle one for each statement.)
7 - Strongly Disagree 6 - Disagree 5 - Slightly disagree 4 - Not Sure
3 - Slightly Agree 2 - Agree 1 - Strongly Agree
My teachers here give me a lot of encouragement in my studies. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I enjoy doing challenging class assignments. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
What other people think of me is very important. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I start to study at least 2 or 3 days prior to tests. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I expect to do well and earn good grades in college. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Understanding what is taught is important. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I always complete homework assignments. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I keep trying even when I am frustrated by a task. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Learning can be judged best by the grade one gets. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
It is important for me to finish the courses in my program of studies. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
158
37. (continued). (Circle one for each statement.)
7 - Strongly Disagree 6 - Disagree 5 - Slightly disagree 4 - Not Sure
3 - Slightly Agree 2 - Agree 1 - Strongly Agree
Things are harder for me because of my race or ethnicity. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I frequently have difficulty meeting deadlines. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I am very determined to reach my goals. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I was initially very nervous about attending college. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I feel most satisfied when I work hard to achieve something. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
My family is more important than my career. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Success in college is largely due to effort
(has to do with how hard you try). 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I feel I belong at this college. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I wait until the day before an assignment is due before starting it. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I know I can learn all the skills taught in college. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I want to become involved in programs to clean up the environment. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I have declared a college major. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
38. I have attended an orientation session at this college. Yes O
No O
39. Are you receiving the following types of financial assistance? (Mark all that apply.)
Loan O Scholarship or grant O
40. Do you own your ow n....? (Mark one in each column).
Yes No
Home (not renting) O O
Computer (with Internet access) O O
Computer (without Internet access) O O
Car O O
41. What is the highest level of formal education obtained by your parents either in the U.S.
or in another country? (Mark one in each column.)
6th grade or less
Mother
0
Father
0
Junior high or middle school O 0
Some high school 0 0
Finished high school or GED o 0
Some community college o 0
Completed community college 0 0
Some four-year college o 0
Completed four-year college degree o 0
Some graduate school o 0
Graduate degree o 0
I do not know o 0
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159
42. While you were growing up, mark the job that best describes your parent’s major
occupation. (Mark one in each column.)
Mother Father
Retired O O
Day laborer (cleaning, construction, farm, factory, etc.) O O
Worker or hourly employee (service, hotel, hospital, agriculture,
truck driver, clerical, retail sales and service, laundry or
maintenance, etc.) O O
Factory worker (Manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, operations,
telephone operator, etc.) O O
Skilled tradesman (machinist, plumber, tile setter, electrician, auto
mechanic, nurse, secretary, chef, technician) O O
Supervisor or manager (professional) O O
Small business owner (retail, construction, service, etc.) O O
Professional, white collar (sales, finance, teaching, consulting,
engineer, accounting, doctor, lawyer, etc.) O O
Housework (taking care of children or home) O O
Unemployed or on welfare O O
Do not know O O
43. Write in your father’s main job (or, if not working now, his recent job).
44. Write in your mother’s main job (or, if not working now, her recent job).
45. Describe your present work/career.
46. Describe the type of work/career you plan to be involved in 7 or 8 years from now.
47. How much education do you think is needed for the above type of work you are planning?
(Mark one.)
High school diploma or GED O
Some community college O
Completion of Associate degree (A. A. or equivalent) O
Some four-year college work O
Completion of a four-year college degree (B.A., B.S.) O
Completion of more than a four-year college degree O
Completion of a professional degree or credential O
Completion of a graduate degree (Mater’s Degree) O
Completion of an advanced professional degree
(Doctorate, Ph.D., M.D., etc.) O
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160
Code:
> 3 V-x RECORDS RELEASE AUTHORIZATION
ROSSIER ~
SCHOOL OF
EDUCATION
Dear Student,
We request your participation in an important study. The information we are gathering
from this project will be used to improve college teaching and learning and improve the
student experience in community colleges. It would be helpful if we could examine
records pertaining to educational preparation, demographic characteristics and course
enrollment information along with your responses to this survey. The Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) provides that an educational institution may not
release confidential information about a student without the student’s consent. Please
provide us with permission to access these portions of your records with the Los Angeles
Community Colleges. Your consent will also allow us to contact you for follow-up
research.
Thank you.
Linda Serra Hagedorn Ph.D.
Associate Professor & Chair, Community College Leadership
213-740-7218
I hereby authorize the research team headed by Dr. Linda Serra Hegedom to obtain from
the Los Angeles Community Colleges the records of course registration, the final course
grade I receive, information from my college application, scores from my assessment tests,
and other records directly pertaining to my academic experience at the Los Angeles
Community Colleges. This permission is valid only for the purposes of the research
described herein.
I understand that my name and other information that may identify me individually will
not be released by the researchers. I provide my permission freely without coercion or
threat.
Student’s Signature Date
Your full name (please print)
USC UPIRB #00-05-181
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161
APPENDIX B
TRUCCS PARTICIPATING FACULTY SURVEY
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162
Transfer and Retention of
Urban Community College Students (TRUCCS)
Participating Faculty Survey
Dear Los Angeles Community College Faculty Member:
Thank you for allowing us to survey your students. We know that your class time is
precious and we are especially thankful that you are assisting us with this important
project. We are surveying a small segment of the classrooms on your campus. Your class
has been selected because it represents an important segment of the student population.
We plan to use the information generated from this project to help all of us become more
familiar with the learning experiences of students in community colleges.
While your students complete the TRUCCS Student Survey, we would be most grateful if
you would complete this short faculty survey so that we can learn more about your class.
Your responses will be kept in confidence and all results will be reported in aggregate so
that identification of individual classes or faculty will not be possible. We want to
emphasize that the reason for these questions is to better understand your students and not
evaluate you or your course. We therefore ask you to share your observations about the
students’ learning experiences in THIS course. Your insights are invaluable. We greatly
appreciate your participation.
Sincerely,
The TRUCCS team
Course Title:
Number of units: _______
Course times (example: 8:00 am - 8:50 am):
Days of week class meets (example: MWF):
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163
1. W hat is your professional assessment of the student abilities in this class?
O One of the best classes I have ever taught
O A good class, better than many
O About average
O Less than average, not as good as many
O One of the least proficient classes I have ever taught
2. In the last two weeks, which of the following teaching or evaluation methods did you
use with THIS class? (Mark all that apply)
o multiple choice test 0 cooperative group project
o short answer test O in-class lecture
o quizzes 0 assignment of homework
o essay assignments O reading assignment
o student presentations O library assignment
0 student evaluations of each O assignment requiring the use
other’s work of a computer
o grading on a curve O email correspondence with students
o competency-based grading 0 computer simulation
o large group discussons 0 use of the Internet
O Other
3. Is this class part of a learning community (linked course)? O Yes
O No
4. Your employment status: O Full-time faculty member
O Part-time faculty member
Your age on December 31st of this year: O 30 or less
O 31 to 40
O 41 to 50
O 51 to 60
O 61 to 70
O 71 or older
6. Your gender: O Male
O Female
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164
7. W hat is your ethnic group(s)? (Mark aH that apply)
o Chinese O Mexican
o Filipino O Mexican-American/Black
o Japanese O South American
o Korean O Central American
o Thai O Other Latino/Hispanic
o Laotian O Alaskan Native
o Cambodian O American Indian
o Vietenamese O Pacific Islander / Samoan,
o South Asian (Indian Sub Hawaiian, or Guamanian
continent) O Other Pacific Islander
o Arab O Caucasian/White
o African-American/Black O Other
8. In total, how long have you been teaching? (Please include ALL of your experience
both at this college and at other institutions)
O This is my first year of teaching
O 1 to 3 years
O 4 to 6 years
O 7 to 10 years
O 11 to 20 years
O 21 years or more
9. How long have you been employed at this college?
O This is my first year of teaching
O 1 to 3 years
O 4 to 6 years
O 7 to 10 years
O 11 to 20 years
O 21 years or more
10. Before this term, how many times have you taught this specific course?
O 0
O 1 to 2 times
O 3 to 5 times
O 6 to 10 times
O 11 times or more
11. Is there anything significant about THIS class that you feel would aid the researchers
in understanding these students?
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165
N am e:____________________________
Phone number: ( ) —
Email: ____________________________
□ Check here if you would like to see an aggregate report of your students’
responses.
j — | Check here if you would be willing to participate in a faculty focus group to
discuss community college students in this district.
□ Check here if you would be willing to be interviewed (by telephone)
regarding your views of community college students in this district.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Terada, Wayne H.
(author)
Core Title
Faculty characteristics: What are their relationships with academic outcomes of community college students?
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Education
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
education, community college,OAI-PMH Harvest
Language
English
Contributor
Digitized by ProQuest
(provenance)
Advisor
Hagedorn, Linda Serra (
committee chair
), Rueda, Robert (
committee member
), Sundt, Melora (
committee member
)
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-459260
Unique identifier
UC11340319
Identifier
3196902.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-459260 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
3196902.pdf
Dmrecord
459260
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Terada, Wayne H.
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
Tags
education, community college