The most important asset of any organization is its people (Danish & Usman, 2010). Whatever the market segment, they are the driving force behind creating and delivering on the organization’s strategic and financial objectives. The ability to attract, retain and motivate the necessary workforce, through use of financial rewards, is a main determinant in the degree to which these objectives are met (Fong & Tosi, 2007; Gomez- Mejia & Balkin, 1992b; Newman, Gerhart, & Milkovich, 2016). While there are many approaches to pay strategy, a key aspect, and the focus of this dissertation, is the market positioning of cash compensation. Specifically examined was the stated policy narrative of market positioning compared to actual pay practice. While compensation practices in the private sector have received significant research attention, much less focus has been given to pay in academia. This work seeks to address this apparent gap and extend our knowledge in this area. Utilizing faculty pay at Florida’s ten major public universities, this dissertation analyzes consistency between the narrative and practice at the levels of university, department, rank, size and region. The findings demonstrated a significant difference between pay and university but inconsistencies across all levels with the stated narrative. Additionally, the results indicate a widening gap between actual pay and the market average between the 2005- 2006 academic year to present. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

In 2012, the vast majority of programmes within the eight tertiary institutions in Hong Kong will transform from three-year to four-year undergraduate curricula. As a result, general education requirements, extra-curricular modes of learning, methods of assessment, and numerous other issues are being considerably revised under the rhetoric of “reform.” Although several public policy documents produced by the governing body for tertiary education (the University Grants Committee) offer rationales for reform, there has not yet been a study which examines the individual interests, expectations and concerns of professors working in the Hong Kong public university system. Through interviews and questionnaires with professors working at tertiary institutions in Hong Kong, this project aimed to define and evaluate the reform issues which academic staff consider most meaningful. Responses from academic staff members were analyzed not only as a whole, but by demographic factors, such as individual universities, fields of study, cultural backgrounds, educational backgrounds, and work experiences. This study employed a sequential mixed-method exploratory design, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Hence, the study progressed through two stages: a single qualitative stage in which data was gathered from 23 semi-structured interviews, and a single quantitative stage in which a thirty-item questionnaire was completed by 261 full-time junior and senior level academic staff. For the qualitative stage, a phenomenological approach was adopted to explain and compare the perceptions of individuals deeply invested in Hong Kong’s curriculum reform. For the quantitative stage, a number of statistical tools were utilized to explicate results, draw comparisons, and support conclusions. As a result of interviews and the quantitative data propagated by the questionnaire, it was found that 1) there were more negative than positive responses concerning the articulation and implementation of reforms; 2) conspicuously negative scores were generated on all four defined aspects of the reform process; 3) there was a general sense that research expectations had increased and there was a greater emphasis on international benchmarking in the Hong Kong higher education sector; 4) a significant proportion of academic staff wanted to see greater collaboration between different universities, increased recruitment of international students, a greater emphasis on Putonghua and English language training, an upward adjustment in the retirement age for professors, and greater freedom for students to change degree programmes; and 5) statistically significant differences could be observed on several issues, depending on individual professors’ universities, fields of study, cultural and educational backgrounds, and work experiences in Hong Kong. Based on these results, implications for Hong Kong, reforms in other cultural contexts, and future research were advanced. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

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This study is an investigation of the personality characteristics of the Most and least effective teachers in three church-related universities in a central West Texas city. A student evaluation of instruction form was utilized to allow students in the three universities to rate teacher effectiveness in the classroom. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Isabel Briggs-Myers, The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, 4th ed., Princeton, Educational Testing Service, 1973) was administered to those teachers who were rated both as most effective and least effective by 5,153 students. The use of this instrument, which provides a personality profile that is indicative of dominant personality characteristics (extrovert-introvert; sensing-intuitive; thinking-feeling, judging-perceptive), allows for measurement (by upper and lower quartile scores) of the differences between the personality characteristics of the most and least effective teachers in this sample.

Information literacy is widely acknowledged as important for student success in higher education. Information literacy is the ability to sort through a large amount of available information, decide what is useful and believable, and apply it in an effective and ethical way. Faculty members have expectations regarding information literacy for students in the first year of college, while students have information literacy practices that may or may not match those expectations. In my study, I examined the alignment of faculty member information literacy expectations and student information literacy practices, focusing on freshman students and faculty members who teach freshman students in a required general education course at a public university in the northwestern United States. Using an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design, I began my study with qualitative interviews of students and faculty members, used data from the interviews to develop a survey instrument, conducted a pilot study with the survey instrument, and used the survey instrument to administer an online quantitative survey to 106 students and 10 faculty members. The survey consisted of 42 items pertaining to student practices and faculty expectations as identified by student and faculty member interview participants. Survey data showed the percentage of faculty members expecting a practice was generally higher than the percentage of students carrying out that practice. Overall, the study findings revealed a gap between faculty expectations and student practices.

The purpose of the study was to explore faculty attitudes towards institutional repositories in order to better understand their research habits and preferences. A better understanding of faculty needs and attitudes will enable academic libraries to improve institutional repository services and policies. A phenomenological approach was used to interview fourteen participants and conduct eight observations to determine how tenure-track faculty want to disseminate their research as well as their attitudes towards sharing research data. Interviews were transcribed and coded into emerging themes. Participants reported that they want their research to be read, used, and to have an impact. While almost all faculty see institutional repositories as something that would be useful for increasing the impact and accessibility of their research, they would consider publishers’ rights before depositing work in a repository. Researchers with quantitative data, and researchers in the humanities are more likely to share data than with qualitative or mixed data, which is more open to interpretation and inference. Senior faculty members are more likely than junior faculty members to be concerned about the context of their research data. Junior faculty members’ perception’ of requirements for tenure will inhibit their inclination to publish in open access journals, or share data. The study used a novel approach to provide an understanding of faculty attitudes and the structural functionalism of scholarly communication.

The purpose of this Bailey study was to identify perceived barriers of faculty participation in distance education courses in a four-year university and identify the differences in perceived barriers between the Hebert 2003 study and this Bailey study. The literature review covers numerous studies and articles written within the last 10 years that are related to a variety of barriers perceived by faculty and administrators. There were no statistically significant relationships found between faculty demographics including gender, age, position at the university, tenure status, and number of years faculty have taught in post-secondary education. There were no statistically significant relationships found between the top administrator-ranked motivators and corresponding faculty-ranked motivators, nor between the top administrator-ranked inhibitors and the corresponding faculty-ranked inhibitors. Out of the top four non-participating, faculty-ranked barriers, three were found to have statistically significant relationships with the corresponding administrator-ranked barriers. Statistically significant relationships were found between the faculty-ranked motivators and corresponding administrator identified motivators and between the top ranked barriers identified by non-participating faculty and administrators in Hebert’s study compared to non-participating faculty-ranked and administrator-ranked barriers identified in this study.

Background: Researchers have revealed that among the reasons provided as barriers to the adoption of technology are: lack of technology resources, time, professional development and support (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, 1997; Parker, 1996; Sheldon & Jones, 1996; Sheldon & Jones, 1996; NCATE, 1997; Shelly, Gunter & Gunter, 2010, U.S. Congress, 1995). Several models used to explain the usage of technology within education such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) have been somewhat ineffective in explaining or providing a holistic view of the factors that come into play when examining technology infusion and diffusion as they account for a limited percentage of variance (Legris, Ingham & Collerete, 2003; Pan, Gunter, Sivo & Cornell, 2005). Purpose: To better understand the choices that faculty members make in their use of educational technologies and media and to determine why some technologies such as blackboard have been widely adopted, but others have not. The following research question was formulated to guide the study: "Why do faculty members in higher education make the instructional choices they do with respect to educational technologies and media? Also, how can the use of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), as a more robust framework, offer an increase in explanatory power to better enable the understanding of a multitude of factors that impact the adoption and use of certain media technologies? Setting: A technology rich department at a college of a large urban university in the Southeastern United States. Participants: Three faculty members who taught in the department. Research Design: Qualitative multi-site case study informed by Engeström's Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1987). Data Collection and Analysis: Document analysis, individual interviews, and laboratory and classroom observations provided data. Qualitative data analysis that employed qualitative inquiry research was informed by Creswell's "data analysis spiral" and Engeström's CHAT. Findings: Visits at the institution presented several of the key ideas in the CHAT framework including contradictions within the media selection activity and tensions at the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary levels. Additional themes included group work, autonomy, media as a tool to achieve learning goals, caring for students, early adopters, and relevance with current trends.

This study investigates the incentive categories related to job satisfaction for full time faculty in postsecondary institutions in the United States. The data for the analysis is from the 1988 NSOPF conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. Using secondary analysis of the data a job satisfaction index was derived from the responses to the twenty-nine subquestions in question 19 of the faculty questionnaire. Three incentive categories, financial, job related, and personal, provided the context in which job satisfaction was explored. The research questions focused on job satisfaction in the three incentive categories relating to research and teaching, institutional type, and academic rank. The major conclusions of this study are summarized as follows: full time faculty in postsecondary institutions are: Less than dissatisfied with research opportunities across institutional types and academic ranks; Satisfied with the same amount or less teaching opportunities across institutional types and academic ranks; More job satisfied at two year institutions in all three incentive categories, financial, job related, and personal; Satisfied with the type of institution in which they are presently employed and are less likely to leave for a different type of institution; Satisfied as full professors for all three incentive categories, financial, job related and personal; Least satisfied as associate professors for personal incentive category; Least satisfied as assistant professors for financial and job related incentive categories. / Ed. D.

Dissertation (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation is aimed at describing gender difference in publication productivity among South African academic authors, and to develop an understanding of possible reasons for these differences. It is argued that the lack of empirical knowledge of publication productivity of academics in South Africa needs to be addressed, as scientific communication through publication is one of the most central social processes in science. Moreover, one form of scientific publication, the peer-reviewed article, has become the single most important aspect according to which academics in South Africa and abroad are rewarded. The focus on gender differences is motivated by the fact that women have been strengthening their representation in South African HEIs, but not their proportional contribution to our country’s output of accredited research articles. A review of the past four decades of empirical and theoretical work on the gender gap in publication productivity leads the author to identify three sets of factors that may account for its existence: gender-socialised differences between women and men, women’s greater family responsibilities, and gender-related deficits in the academic workplace. However, none of these sets of variables by themselves satisfactorily account for gender differences in publication productivity, and they should not be considered independent from each other. The literature review is followed by a review of methodological considerations that need to be taken into account when studying gender differences in publication productivity. Against this background, the advantages and limitations associated with the first empirical project of the dissertation - a secondary analysis of SA Knowledgebase, an existing bibliometric database - are identified. This analysis is aimed at quantifying gender differences in the publication productivity of South African academic authors; at controlling for relevant variables (race, age, highest qualification, rank, institutional affiliation and scientific domain); and at investigating gender differences in the tendency towards joint authorship. The results show that South African male authors publish almost twice as many articles in accredited journals than women authors do, but that the latter’s contribution to the total scientific publication output of South Africa has increased from 16 percent in 1990 to 24 percent in 2001. Part of the gender gap in publication productivity can be explained by women’s younger age, lower qualification level and lower rank as a gender group, but not by any tendency among women to co-author less than men do. This project was complemented by the analysis of primary data collected from the CVs of and qualitative interviews with sixteen highly productive South African academics. This second project contributes to the development of a more in-depth understanding of the way in which men and women’s publication productivity is differentially affected, in a predominantly male milieu and across the span of their careers, by their family responsibilities, non-research academic roles, and gender-socialisation. The dissertation concludes with an integration of the literature review with the main findings of the two projects, on the basis of which recommendations are made for future research, and proposals are made towards rendering the measurement of publication productivity more sensitive to the gender differences highlighted by the dissertation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif het ten doel om genderverskille in publikasieproduktiwiteit van Suid-Afrikaanse akademiese outeurs te beskryf, en om ʼn begrip te ontwikkel van moontlike redes vir dié verskille. Daar word aangevoer dat ʼn gebrek aan empiriese kennis oor die publikasieproduktiwiteit van akademici in Suid-Afrika aangespreek behoort te word, aangesien wetenskaplike kommunikasie deur middel van publikasie een van die mees sentrale proses in die wetenskap is. Daarbenewens het een vorm van wetenskaplike publikasie, die eweknie-beoordeelde artikel, die enkele belangrikste aspek geword waarvolgens akademici in Suid-Afrika en oorsee beloon word. Die fokus op genderverskille word gemotiveer deur die feit dat vroue hul verteenwoordiging in Suid-Afrikaanse hoër-onderwysinstellings versterk het, maar nie hul proporsionele bydrae tot ons land se uitset van geakkrediteerde navorsings-artikels nie. ʼn Oorsig van die afgelope vier dekades se empiriese en teoretiese werk oor die gender-gaping in publikasieproduktiwiteit lei tot die identifisering van drie stelle faktore wat die bestaan daarvan sou kon verklaar: gender-gesosialiseerde verskille tussen vroue en mans, vroue se swaarder gesinsverantwoordelikheidslas, en gender-verbandhoudende tekortkominge in die akademiese werkplek. Opsigself verklaar geen enkele van hierdie stelle veranderlikes egter gender-verskille in publikasieproduktiwiteit op ʼn bevredigende wyse nie, en hulle behoort nie onafhanklik van mekaar beskou te word nie. Die literatuur-oorsig word gevolg deur ’n oorsig van metodologiese oorwegings wat in ag geneem behoort te word ter bestudering van gender-verskille in publikasieproduktiwiteit. Teen hierdie agtergrond word die voordele en beperkinge verbonde aan die eerste empiriese projek van die proefskrif – ʼn sekondêre ontleding van SA Knowledgebase, ’n bestaande bibliometriese databasis - geïdentifiseer. Hierdie ontleding van is daarop gemik om gender-verskille in die publikasieproduktiwiteit van Suid-Afrikaanse akademiese outeurs te kwantifiseer; om vir relevante veranderlikes te kontroleer (ras, ouderdom, hoogste kwalifikasie, rang, institusionele affiliasie en wetenskaplike domein); en om gender-verskille in mede-outeurskap te ondersoek. Die resultate toon dat Suid-Afrikaanse man-outeurs bykans twee maal soveel artikels in geakkrediteerde vaktydskrifte as vroue-outeurs publiseer, maar dat laasgenoemde se bydrae tot die totale wetenskaplike publikasie-uitset van Suid-Afrika vanaf 16 persent in 1990 tot 24 persent in 2001 toegeneem het. Deel van die gender-gaping in publikasieproduktiwiteit kan verklaar word aan die hand van vroue se jonger ouderdom, laer kwalifikasievlak, en laer rang as ʼn gender-groep, maar nie aan die hand van enige neiging by vroue om minder as mans met andere te publiseer nie. Hierdie projek is aangevul deur die ontleding van primêre data wat ingesamel is vanuit die CV’s van, en kwalitatiewe onderhoude met sestien hoogs-produktiewe Suid-Afrikaanse akademici. Hierdie tweede projek dra by tot die ontwikkeling van ’n meer in-diepte begrip van die wyse waarop mans en vroue se gesinsverantwoordelikhede, hul nie-navorsingsverbandhoudende akademiese rolle, en hul gendersosialisering in ’n oorwegend manlike milieu en oor die bestek van hul loopbane heen differensieel op hul publikasieproduktiwiteit inwerk. Die proefskrif sluit af met ’n integrasie van die literatuur-oorsig met die hoofbevindinge van die twee projekte, op grond waarvan aanbevelings vir toekomstige navorsing gemaak word, en voorstelle aan die hand gedoen word vir die meting van publikasieproduktiwiteit wat sensitief sou wees vir die genderverskille wat in hierdie proefskrif uitgelig is.