This study examined the effect of active learning seminars and a mentoring program on the use of active learning teaching techniques by college faculty. A quasi-experimental study was conducted using convenience samples of faculty from two private Christian supported institutions. Data for the study were collected from surveys and faculty course evaluations. The study lasted one semester. Faculty volunteers from one institution served as the experimental group and faculty volunteers from the second institution were the comparison group. The experimental group attended approximately eight hours of active learning seminars and also participated in a one-semester mentoring program designed to assist faculty in application of active learning techniques. Several individuals conducted the active learning seminars. Dr. Charles Bonwell, a noted authority on active learning, conducted the first three-hour seminar. Seven faculty who had successfully used active learning in their classrooms were selected to conduct the remaining seminars. The faculty-mentoring program was supervised by the researcher and conducted by department chairs. Data were collected from three surveys and faculty course evaluations. The three surveys were the Faculty Active Learning Survey created by the researcher, the Teaching Goals Inventory created by Angelo and Cross, and the college edition of Learner-Centered Practices by Barbara McCombs. The use of active learning techniques by the experimental group increased significantly more than the use by those in the convenience sample. No statistical difference was found in the change of professors' teaching beliefs or the course evaluation results.

This study examines the ethical beliefs and behaviors of full-time community college faculty. Respondents report to what degree they practice sixty-two behaviors as teachers and whether they believe the behaviors to be ethical. Survey participants engaged in few of the behaviors, and only reported two actions as ethical: (1) accepting inexpensive gifts from students and (2) teaching values or ethics. The participants reported diverse responses to questions about behavior of a sexual nature, but most agreed that sexual relationships with students or colleagues at the same, higher or lower rank were unethical. Additional findings relate to the presence of diversity among the faculty, using school resources to publish textbooks and external publications, selling goods to students, and an expansive list of other behaviors. Findings of this study are compared to results from earlier studies that utilized the same or similar survey instrument with teaching faculty. The study has implications for organizational policy and procedure, for faculty training and development, the teaching of ethics or values in the classroom and for future research.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of determining the influence of instructors' written comments on the test performances of students in selected college subjects. The students were from one university and one junior college. The written comments were designed to be positive in nature and to encourage better future test performances by students. The comments were made in regard to the letter grades received by the students and were placed only on major (as defined by each instructor) objective tests.

The purpose of this study was to determine the opportunities available for employment to Ph.D.'s and Ed.D.'s in College Teaching by revealing the attitudes/preferences of employing agents-—deans and departmental chairmen-—toward Ph.D.'s and Ed.D.'s in College Teaching versus Ph.D.'s in an academic area. The problem led to the development of eleven specific questions which were investigated in the study.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of programed vocabulary instruction in an undergraduate collegiate business communications course. In making its evaluation, the study tests the hypothesis that a class using such instruction would improve over a class without formal vocabulary study. The three areas of proficiency measured are written communication, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

The study analyzed burnout of nursing faculty to determine the frequency, intensity, and predictors of burnout. Christian Maslach's burnout questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and a demographic data survey were used to measure burnout. A random selection of 250 nursing faculty was mailed both a burnout questionnaire and a demographic data survey. There were 192 useable responses that were used in the study. Each questionnaire and demographic data survey were reviewed for completeness and rechecked for accurate data entry. The results were presented in summary tables. Data analysis included frequency, means, Pearson r, and downward, stepwise regression analyses. There was a high frequency and intensity of burnout in all nursing faculty, as measured in the three MBI subscales (depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and personal accomplishment). There was a significant relationship between the number of hours nursing faculty spend with academic advising and the intensity of emotional exhaustion. None of the demographic data, except hours spent in academic advising, were a predictor of burnout.

All too often faculty are asked to implement technology into their teaching without the knowledge necessary to use the technology effectively. Due to the evolution of technology in everyday settings, students have come to expect to be engaged through technological means. This often creates undue stress on faculty members. The purpose of this study is to investigate technology integration by exploring the relationships between a faculty member’s technology preferences and educational beliefs. Through a mixed method, this study attempts to address the question of why faculty use the types of technology they do. More importantly, this study investigates if a faculty member’s educational beliefs have any influence on the technology they choose to use. Thirty-two medical, clinical, and healthcare faculty members participated in the study. They responded to a Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) survey and a Technology Preferences survey with open-ended questions. Data analysis revealed multiple statistically significant findings between different beliefs and different types of technology. The results indicated that personal epistemic beliefs influence the types of technology faculty use. The technology choices faculty make are largely related to tools they are comfortable with and ones they believe effectively fit their teaching materials. The study also found statistically significant differences between age, gender, and reported technology use. It is suggested faculty development programs should consider faculty members’ educational beliefs and personal preferences when supporting faculty with their uses of technologies.

I have committed a significant period of time (in my case five years) to the purpose development of learning environments, with the belief that it would improve the self-actualisation and self-motivation of students and teachers alike. I consider it important to record and measure performance as we progressed toward such an outcome. Education researchers and practitioners alike, in the higher (university/tertiary) education systems, are seeking among new challenges to engage students and teachers in learning (James, 2001). However, studies to date show a confusing landscape littered with a multiplicity of interpretations and terms, successes and failures. As the discipline leader of the Information Technology, Systems and Multimedia (ITSM) Discipline, Swinburne University of Technology, Lilydale, I found myself struggling with this paradigm. I also found myself being torn between what presents as pragmatic student learning behaviour and the learner-centred teaching ideal reflected in the Swinburne Lilydale mission statement. The research reported in this folio reflects my theory and practice as discipline leader of the ITSM Discipline and the resulting learning environment evolution during the period 1997/8 to 2003. The study adds to the material evidence of extant research through firstly, a meta analysis of the learning environment implemented by the ITSM Discipline as recorded in peer reviewed and published papers; and secondly, a content analysis of student learning approaches, conducted on data reported from a survey of ‘learning skills inventory’ originally conducted by the ITSM Discipline staff in 2002. In 1997 information and communication technologies (ICT) were beginning to provide plausible means for electronic distribution of learning materials on a flexible and repeatable basis, and to provide answers to the imperative of learning materials distribution relating to an ITSM Discipline new course to begin in 1998. A very short time frame of three months was available prior to teaching the course. The ITSM Discipline learning environment development was an evolutionary process I began in 1997/8 initially from the requirement to publish print-based learning guide materials for the new ITSM Discipline subjects. Learning materials and student-to-teacher reciprocal communication would then be delivered and distributed online as virtual learning guides and virtual lectures, over distance as well as maintaining classroom-based instruction design. Virtual here is used to describe the use of ICT and Internet-based approaches. No longer would it be necessary for students to attend classes simply to access lecture content, or fear missing out on vital information. Assumptions I made as discipline leader for the ITSM Discipline included, firstly, that learning should be an active enterprise for the students, teachers and society; secondly, that each student comes to a learning environment with different learning expectations, learning skills and learning styles; and thirdly, that the provision of a holistic learning environment would encourage students to be self-actualising and self-motivated. Considerable reading of research and publications, as outlined in this folio, supported the update of these assumptions relative to teaching and learning. ITSM Discipline staff were required to quickly and naturally change their teaching styles and communication of values to engage with the emergent ITSM Discipline learning environment and pedagogy, and each new teaching situation. From a student perspective such assumptions meant students needed to move from reliance upon teaching and prescriptive transmission of information to a self-motivated and more self-actualising and reflective set of strategies for learning. In constructing this folio, after the introductory chaperts, there are two distinct component parts; • firstly, a Descriptive Meta analysis (Chapter Three) that draws together several of my peer reviewed professional writings and observations that document the progression of the ITSM Discipline learning environment evolution during the period 1997/8 to 2003. As the learning environment designer and discipline leader, my observations and published papers provide insight into the considerations that are required when providing an active, flexible and multi-modal learning environment for students and teachers; and • secondly, a Dissertation (Chapter Four), as a content analysis of a learning skills inventory data collection, collected by the ITSM Discipline in the 2002 Swinburne Lilydale academic year, where students were encouraged to complete reflective journal entries via the ITSM Discipline virtual learning guide subject web-site. That data collection included all students in a majority of subjects supported by the ITSM Discipline for both semesters one and two 2002. The original purpose of the journal entries was to have students reflectively involved in assessing their learning skills and approaches to learning. Such perceptions were tested using a well-known metric, the ‘learning skills inventory’ (Knowles, 1975), augmented with a short reflective learning approach narrative. The journal entries were used by teaching staff originally and then made available to researchers as a desensitised data in 2003 for statistical and content analysis relative to student learning skills and approaches. The findings of my research support a view of the student and teacher enculturation as utilitarian, dependent and pragmatically self-motivated. This, I argue, shows little sign of abatement in the early part of the 21st Century. My observation suggests that this is also independent of the pedagogical and educational philosophy debate or practice as currently presented. As much as the self-actualising, self-motivated learning environment can be justified philosophically, the findings observed from this research, reported in this folio, cannot. Part of the reason for this originates from the debate by educational researchers as to the relative merits of liberal and vocational philosophies for education combined with the recent introduction of information and communication technologies, and commodification of higher education. Challenging students to be participative and active learners, as proposed by educationalists Meyers and Jones (1993), i.e. self-motivated and self-actualising learners, has proved to be problematic. This, I will argue, will require a change to a variable/s (not yet identified) of higher education enculturation on multiple fronts, by students, teachers and society in order to bridge the gap. This research indicates that tertiary educators and educational researchers should stop thinking simplistically of constructivist and/or technology-enabled approaches, students learning choices and teachers teaching choices. Based on my research I argue for a far more holistic set of explanations of student and staff expectations and behaviour, and therefore pedagogy that supports those expectations.

This study looked to gain information and detail on seven sources of instructional feedback. Instructor’s utilization and perceived value of those sources were examined, along with fulfillment of psychological needs and present job satisfaction. Instructors from Western Kentucky University (WKU; N = 126) were solicited as participants. An online survey included five different measures. The first, a Sources of Feedback Questionnaire, was created to examine various sources of instructional feedback utilized by participants (institutional student ratings, consultation with faculty, soliciting feedback from students, self-assessment, self-observation, peer/administrator observation, and team teaching). The second measure, adapted from the Basic Needs Satisfaction questionnaire (Deci et al., 2001), was based on the proposal that with the satisfaction of basic needs instructors will show greater job satisfaction. The third questionnaire was a measure of present job satisfaction (Larkin, 1990; Oshagbemi, 1995; Oshagbemi, 1999). The fourth measure was a measure of Competence Valuation (Elliot et al., 2000). The final measure was a basic questionnaire created to obtain demographic information for each participant. Of the seven sources of feedback studied, self-assessment (i.e., reflection) was found to be the most utilized source, whereas self-observation (i.e., videotaping) was found to be the least utilized. The most helpful source of feedback to improve an instructor’s effectiveness was soliciting feedback from students; institutional student ratings were found to be the least helpful. Soliciting feedback from students was also found to be the most useful source of feedback for improving teaching. Job satisfaction was significantly correlated with the three basic psychological needs as well as two other items from the basic needs questionnaire (enjoyment and effort). Job satisfaction of participants was also significantly correlated with competence valuation and the utilization of institutional student ratings. In terms of fulfillment of the basic psychological needs and utilization of the feedback sources, relatedness was the only need that was found to be significantly correlated with utilization of feedback.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (February 16, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-57)