by William D. Gardner, Cleveland State University
Summer 2005
OVERVIEW
Highlights of the Faculty Survey:
Uses of the Faculty Survey:
Liberal Arts and the Faculty Survey:
Jill Cellars Rogers
Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts
at Wabash College
Introduction
Created by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the Faculty Survey is administered every three years. The four-page, 241-question instrument takes approximately 20 minutes to complete and has been administered intermittently since the1989–90 academic year. The instrument repeats questions from previous years to enable participating institutions to compare current responses with previous survey results. However, the Faculty Survey is also revised prior to each distribution to reflect the changing needs of participants.
The HERI Faculty Survey is designed to provide colleges and universities with timely information about the workload, teaching practices, job satisfaction, and professional activities of faculty and administrators. For example, the survey asks questions that address the importance of faculty/student interaction and faculty interest in student development (see questions #17, #25, #27, #28). Faculty are asked how often they give essay exams in class (#32), how often they’ve taught an interdisciplinary course (#13), and about the scholarly emphasis of their courses (#18). Available to all postsecondary institutions, the survey can be used for ongoing institutional research, accreditation, and self-study reports; campus planning and policy analysis; and faculty development programs. The following paragraphs will provide a review of the Faculty Survey and its utility for aiding and understanding liberal arts education at colleges and universities.
Participation and Administration
All types of institutions might find this instrument useful and relevant to their campus assessment needs. Campus profile reports, together with national data, furnish important context for understanding the responses of faculty and administrators. HERI also provides national data from its survey for similar types of institutions (e.g., private research institutions, public four-year colleges, Catholic colleges).
The fee for participating institutions for the 2001–02 administration of the survey was $325, plus $3.25 per returned survey. The fees cover all costs for data collection, data processing, and preparation of individual campus reports. HERI provides pre-addressed, postage-paid return envelopes that respondents mail directly to the HERI survey processing center. This ensures confidentiality for both the institution and individual faculty members.
The survey is administered in the fall and spring of the academic year. For an institution’s data to be included in the national profile created by HERI, participating two- and four-year colleges are required to have responses from at least 35 percent of their full-time faculty, while universities are required to have responses from a minimum of 25 percent. Each institution is responsible for survey distribution and may add its own cover letters as well as up to 20 questions specifically pertinent to its campus.
In the late spring, participating institutions receive detailed reports indicating faculty and administration responses. These reports provide institutions with separate profiles for teaching faculty and academic administrators. Participating institutions are also provided with comparative data for faculty at similar types of institutions. A number of additional reports are available for a nominal fee.
Survey results are published every three years in The American College Teacher, which is available for $25 through the HERI website. This composite report provides a profile of teaching faculty at institutions nationally, with focus areas that include teaching, research activities, and professional development issues, as well as job satisfaction and stress.
Using the Faculty Survey
The HERI Faculty Survey can provide institutions with useful data about how their faculties feel about workload, teaching practices, professional activities, and job satisfaction. Institutions can use this information to guide policy and curricular change, compare their faculty demographics and attitudes to those at other like institutions, help with accreditation, and institute faculty development programs. Additionally, responses between participant subgroups might show noteworthy trends and patterns. For example, major discrepancies between faculty and administrator perspectives might provide interesting talking points for the two groups and could suggest the need for further investigation. Differences in attitudes and job satisfaction levels of tenured versus non-tenured faculty, or male versus female faculty members, for example, would also suggest a need for further exploration and inquiry.
Furthermore, data from student surveys can be collected alongside the Faculty Survey. Both the CIRP Freshman Survey and the CSS are frequently administered along with the Faculty Survey. The CIRP Freshman Survey is given to first-year students in order to obtain a snapshot of student experiences, attitudes, and demographics as they enter college. The CSS is typically given to seniors as they approach graduation. Looking at entering and exiting student characteristics in conjunction with faculty attitudes can provide an institution with several points of view about academic and environmental campus conditions. Moreover, students' entering and exiting characteristics might suggest how college affects student development and growth. Data from the Faculty Survey adds another perspective to the equation and allows institutions to reflect on the relationship between faculty practices, attitudes, and demographics and student gains.
The Faculty Survey looks at faculty and administrator perceptions of the campus environment along with their attitudes about social, political, and professional issues. Examining faculty and administrator perceptions of the curricular and co-curricular practices at an institution provides an important component in the overall assessment picture, especially when combined with various student surveys. However, the survey is not designed to measure change or growth of individual faculty or students. Furthermore, the survey investigates faculty perceptions, but it does not provide in-depth analysis as to why faculty feel the way they do about campus practices or professional issues. Further examination into faculty views, including appropriate qualitative approaches, should be considered to provide a more complete picture of the faculty perspective on curricular practices and institutional philosophy.
Concluding Remarks
In sum, the Faculty Survey, though focused on the professional academic experience, does have some use for developing a stronger understanding of liberal arts education outcomes. Wiggins highlights the utility of self-assessment when examining liberal arts education. [1] The Faculty Survey supports Wiggins’ notion by asking faculty and administrators to reflect on practice and personal opinions that inform understanding of liberal arts education. Supplemental assessment tools can provide more in-depth information about how student characteristics and attitudes relate to faculty viewpoint. The Faculty Survey can provide institutions with a snapshot of faculty attitudes and perspectives. Additional tools and qualitative approaches should be considered to best understand liberal arts qualities and the overall campus culture.
Reference