Isabeau Iqbal

Academics' resistance to summative peer review of teaching: questionable rewards and the importance of student evaluations

This study draws from 30 semi-structured interviews with tenure-track faculty members in a research-intensive university to examine their lack of engagement in the summative peer review of teaching. Findings indicate that most academics in the study do not think peer review outcomes contribute meaningfully to decisions about career advancement and believe that, in comparison, student evaluation of teaching scores matter more. The findings suggest that faculty member resistance to summative peer reviews will persist unless academics are confident that the results will be seriously considered in decisions about tenure and promotion. This article also contends that senior administrators should provide further clarity about the purpose and use of peer review outcomes in high-stakes career decisions.

Innovation in collaborative health research training: the role of active learning.

This paper describes and discusses the essential pedagogical elements of the Partnering in Community Health Research (PCHR) program, which was designed to address the training needs of researchers who participate in collaborative, interdisciplinary health research. These elements were intended to foster specific skills that helped learners develop research partnerships featuring knowledge, capabilities, values and attitudes needed for successful research projects. By establishing research teams called “clusters”, PCHR provided research training and experience for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as for community health workers and professionals. Pedagogical elements relied on active learning approaches such as inquiry-based and experience-based learning. Links between these elements and learning approaches are explained. Through their work in cluster-based applied research projects, the development of learning plans, and cross-cluster learning events, trainees acquired collaborative research competencies that were valuable, relevant and theoretically informed.

An Exploration of the Scholarly Foundations of Educational Development

Attempts to improve teaching and learning in higher education are evolving and are becoming more evidence-based. The present chapter looks at some of this evidence as it may inform teaching and learning improvement efforts, strategies for organizational change, and evaluation of programs in educational development. In so doing, we focus on examples of scholarship that educational developers might call “foundational.” The scholarly foundations of attempts to improve teaching and learning are placed in one of three categories: the apocryphal, the theoretically plausible, and the research-based. It is suggested that organizational culture research be used to help develop strategies for organizational change, a key task in educational development. Similarly, foundational literature is reviewed assessing the impact of training on university teachers skills, their approach to teaching and their students’ approaches to their learning.

Faculty members' professional growth in teaching through the summative peer review of teaching and other departmental practices

.................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ...................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... v List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... xiii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ xiv Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. xv Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Presentation of the Problem ..................................................................................... 2 1.2 Research Purpose ..................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Research Objectives ................................................................................................. 5 1.4 Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................ 7 1.5 Research Significance ............................................................................................ 11 1.6 Research Questions ................................................................................................ 12 1.7 Dissertation Structure ............................................................................................. 12 Chapter 2: Literature Review ............................................................................................. 13 2.1 The Peer Review of Teaching ................................................................................ 13 2.1.1 Peer Review of Teaching and Professional Growth ....................................... 14 2.1.1.1 Collective Dialogue about Teaching ........................................................ 16 2.1.1.2 Refining Characteristics of Good Teaching ............................................. 17 2.1.2 Resistance to Peer Review of Teaching .......................................................... 18 2.1.2.1 Time ......................................................................................................... 19

Difficulties associated with recruiting female faculty members for a study on summative peer review of teaching

Qualitative articles about academic development (AD) and published in higher education journals typically have short methods sections that scarcely – if at all – address the researcher’s recruitment process. This, in spite of the fact that whom we recruit and what these individuals disclose determine our findings (Meloy, 2012). This reflection on research, which focuses exclusively on recruitment, is written for novice AD researchers who seek the participation of female professors. New researchers may be more inclined than their experienced peers to believe that their target population shares their enthusiasm for addressing the study’s questions; consequently, the former may assume that recruitment will be relatively straightforward. Female professors, however, frequently feel more vulnerable than their male counterparts (O’Meara, Terosky, & Neumann, 2008) and may be reluctant to volunteer as study participants, especially when the research pertains to academic careers. Female professors’ sense of vulnerability has been related to various trends that are manifested internationally. Compared to men, for instance, women constitute a smaller proportion of the professoriate, are less likely to earn tenure and become full professors (Barrett & Barrett, 2010), and occupy fewer senior roles in academia (Diezmann & Grieshaber, 2010). In addition, some studies have found that female professors feel less valued, included, and respected as researchers (Cress & Hart, 2009); female professors also often have heavier teaching loads (Winslow, 2010), and advising and mentoring responsibilities (Bird, Litt, & Wang, 2004). Given their intense workloads, experiences with glass ceilings, and the fact that women generally spend more time than men fulfilling childcare responsibilities (Barrett & Barrett, 2010), they may be less likely to volunteer as study participants. In what follows, I describe challenges I encountered when trying to recruit female professors for a study and report three strategies that helped me overcome several of these challenges. Though I recognize that these strategies are common sense, I write about them for two principal reasons. First, by sharing these aspects of my research, my goal is to help AD colleagues who face similar issues. Second, I wish to underscore the importance of documenting recruitment processes, because when we fail to do so I believe we miss an important opportunity to address the rigour of our study and the significance of our findings.