Malcolm A. Lowther

Teachers’ Satisfaction with Teaching

AbstractThis article proposes a conceptual scheme of the influences affecting teachers’ career satisfaction and reports a study using that scheme to investigate the relationship between selected abilities, values, and accomplishments and teachers’ career satisfaction. Results supported the scheme. Specifically, women were more satisfied with their teaching career than men. Teachers’ skills and abilities were significantly related to satisfaction but accounted for only small amounts of the additional variance. Career satisfaction is related to assigning little importance to activities and accomplishments that, given the structure of the school, may be difficult to achieve. Yet, actual accomplishments in these areas have a strong positive relationship to satisfaction. Last, the importance of recognition by administrators to teachers’ career satisfaction was discussed.

A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Preservice Professional Programs in Colleges and Universities.

Students in colleges and universities seeking preservice preparation for professional careers now outnumber those pursuing liberal studies. This enrollment pattern challenges college and university administrators, even in some colleges formerly devoted to liberal arts, to become familiar with an increasingly diverse set of programs. Because professional preparation programs vary so greatly on dimensions such as educational goals, expected outcomes, teaching methods, student time commitment, relations with practitioners, and even educational level (baccalaureate or postbaccalaureate), it is not easy for administrators to develop a working understanding of each of them.

Disciplinary Differences in Course Planning

A nationally representative sample of faculty teaching introductory college courses revealed ten factors influencing course planning. Discipline-related content and perceptions of student characteristics were important influences while facilities, resources, and campus support services were far less influential. The strength of these influences differed substantially by discipline but only modestly by institutional type. The authors constructed ten reliable scales from the derived factors that can be used to assess the relative strength of influences on campuses.

Program-Level Curriculum Planning: An Exploration of Faculty Perspectives on Two Different Campuses

This study explored faculty views about curriculum planning in academic programs. Using a semistructured format, researchers interviewed 59 faculty members at two very different campuses about their assumptions and the influences upon them as they work with colleagues in planning program curriculum. Although many of the same factors influence course and program planning, we observed that, compared to course planning, program planning is irregular (even infrequent), typically responds to a specific catalyst, and is more dependent upon a supportive institutional climate and leadership. We consider ways that institutional researchers can help provide a supportive climate for responsive and regular planning that will link planning and assessment more closely.

The Student Goals Exploration: Reliability and Concurrent Validity

This paper reports the reliability and concurrent validity of the Student Goals Exploration, a paper and pencil inventory that measures goals students bring to college and college courses. Reliabilities demonstrating internal consistency and correlations demonstrating concurrent validity with three existing scales (LOGO II, the Need for Cognition Scale, and the Goal Instability Scale) suggest that the SGE provides good indicators for (a) general college goals, (b) general academic orientations toward courses, (c) subject-specific goals in courses, (d) specific goal attributes, and (e) levels of student confidence in course success.

Faculty roles and role preferences in ten fields of professional study

Teaching faculty in ten entry-level professional fields reported varying amounts of time devoted to teaching, research, consulting, and professional practice but did not differ in time devoted to administration. The faculty members own role view was most closely related to time use, but for time spent in teaching and research, faculty age and institutional type (but not gender) were also significant predictors. Even after several general demographic characteristics and environmental variables that potentially differentiate professional from discipline-based faculty are taken into account, different professional fields may be characterized by group climates which influence or reinforce certain faculty roles.

Predictors of Teachers' Preferences Concerning their Evaluation

Personal backgrounds, skills, and attitudes toward professional success reported by experienced classroom teachers modestly predicted preferences for ways of evaluating their work. Teachers view their work as an amalgam: a labor, a profession, a craft, and an art. Achieving consensus regarding teacher evaluation may require multifaceted approaches that recognize varied teacher needs and backgrounds.

Comparing introductory course planning among full-time and part-time faculty

Using data from a nationally representative survey of faculty teaching introductory college courses, this exploratory study compares course planning procedures of full-time and part-time faculty teaching courses in eight academic fields. The choice of variables examined was guided by a general model of course design developed from earlier studies of course planning. To control for discipline-related differences in faculty planning assumptions, separate analyses were conducted for the eight fields. No key differences were found between full-time and part-time faculty on the primary factors under investigation: substantive content-related influences on courses, strength of influence within the instructional environment, and planning steps and content arrangements faculty preferred.

Faculty and administrator views of influences on professional programs

Administrators in professional programs perceive influences on the program from within the university as stronger than do faculty but the two groups do not perceive the strength of societal influences, professional community influences, or internal levels of curriculum debate differently. After controlling for program and institutional sizes and institutional types, these differences between faculty and administrator views regarding relationships between the program and the university appear characteristic of certain professional fields. The analysis was based on subsamples drawn from a data base of survey responses from 873 administrators and 849 faculty members in ten professional fields representing 732 programs in 346 colleges and universities.

Comparative career accomplishments of two decades of women and men doctoral graduates in education

Patterns of doctoral study and subsequent career progress were compared for 756 men and women doctoral graduates in education at a research university from two six-year periods, one before and one after a rapid nation-wide increase in the percentage of women doctorates. Despite advantages relative to men in admission, financial support and full-time study, women doctorates of both periods had achieved less career progress than men but held similarly positive perceptions concerning career impact of the degree. Work experience prior to doctoral study strongly predicted career progress for both genders. Thus, affirmative action may have positively affected the careers of recent women doctorates who were younger and who began study with less established careers than women doctorates prior to 1970.