Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. E. Newton Jackson, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Sport Management, Recreation Management, and Physical Education. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Mar. 11, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Reaching a true consensus on a definition or an evaluation of effective teaching has remained a challenge for researchers, administrators, faculty developers, and instructors in higher education, and as a result, the use of student ratings has also been debated. The purpose of this study was to compare student ratings of global items gathered during the semester with those gathered at the end of the semester, as well as the end of semester student ratings of students who had provided their mid-semester feedback twice with those who had not in order to measure the consistency with which students rated teaching effectiveness in their class under different conditions. Participants for this study included 394 undergraduate students enrolled in a total of seven sections of five courses. Within each of the seven classes, participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one that was primed by completing an online survey twice during the semester, and one that completed an alternate activity at the same time points. Both groups then completed the university’s Students’ Evaluation of Teaching survey with the rest of the class at the end of the semester. After the last day of classes, participants were also invited to attend a focus group session to discuss their experiences in this study. The analyses from the quantitative survey data indicated that for all of the classes, responses to individual items during the semester did not differ significantly from those at the end of the semester. For each of six classes, results did not identify any significant differences between primed and non-primed students on the final survey; however, one class revealed that non-primed students actually responded more consistently than primed students. Additionally, although six classes did not significantly differ for the primed group on the first two mid-semester surveys, one class showed that the ratings of these primed students became less consistent by the second mid-semester survey. Qualitative data from survey comments and focus group sessions were also examined for any patterns. The explanations of the findings as well as the implications of this study and directions for future research are discussed. / text

Frameworks seeking to explain teaching competency and development in higher education indicate that context and personal perspectives, as well as knowledge and action are crucial components in the understanding of how and why faculty teach as they do and how development may be encouraged and may be supported. This study sought to contribute to a deeper understanding of individual instructors' perceptions of context of higher education as it related to their teaching projects. This study investigated the daily pursuits and pre-occupations (teaching goals/projects) of an individual instructor, specifically, the instructional demands, departmental demands, the personal and professional pursuits of knowledge and the pursuits of pedagogical knowledge. More specifically, this study investigated perceived facilitators and barriers to the realization of individual teaching and other work projects. / Nineteen full-time faculty members in the Departments of Physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, Nursing, Social Work, Educational Psychology and Education at a large research and teaching university in Montreal, Quebec participated in this study. The instructors were asked to complete an adapted version of Little's (1983) Personal Project Analysis (P.P.A.) instrument, which is designed to elicit an instructor's current pre-occupations or projects in his or her current context. The instructors were asked to rate these projects (seven teaching projects and seven other work projects) using a Likert scale (0 to 10) on twenty-one empirically supported dimensions. These dimensions included the following: enjoyment, difficulty, control, initiative, stress, time pressure, outcome, self-identity, others' view, value congruency, challenge, commitment, competence, support, self-worth, fun, others' benefit, self-benefit, supportiveness of culture (departmental level), hindrance of culture (departmental level), and overall current satisfaction. Instructors were asked to assess their perceived conflicts between two of their teaching projects and two of their other work projects in addition to completing a demographic questionnaire. / The findings indicate that instructors identified five different types of daily pursuits that formed and defined their teaching context, as they perceived it. These five types of daily pursuits (projects) included: course planning and preparation projects; student investment, support and delegation of tasks to student projects; knowledge building and knowledge sharing projects; committees, faculty support and faculty teaching projects; and finally, teaching strategy projects. The instructors also identified five different types of daily pursuits that formed and defined their other work context. These included: publishing, conference presentation and research projects; grant proposals and funding projects; office organization projects; correspondence, university committees, outside mandates, departmental expectations and management of student and faculty projects; and finally, personal objectives and technical skill building projects. / P.P.A. enabled the researcher to identify on an individual instructor level the instructor's perceived facilitators and barriers to the successful completion of teaching and other work projects. Furthermore, P.P.A. as a faculty development instrument or as an alternative to semi-structured interview methods is supported by the findings.

This study investigated the nature and extent of the pastoral role of lecturers at two colleges of education in KwaZulu-Natal. A questionnaire was constructed based on the published findings of Easton and Van Laar (1995) and of Hart (1996). The sample comprised 32 lecturers at College 1 and 42 at College 2. This was a response rate of 62 per cent. The following issues were investigated: the perception of lecturers of the importance of and need for providing pastoral care to students, the types of problems on which students have been counselled by lecturers, their confidence in dealing with particular problems, the importance they attach to certain helping skills, and their use of counselling skills. The data was analysed statistically and a comparison made between College 1, College 2 and the published findings of Easton and Van Laar (1995) and Hart (1996) where applicable, using appropriate methods. All of the respondents stated that during the previous year they had "counselled" students on problems, the most frequently encountered being financial and health problems, examination anxiety and lack of confidence. More than 70 per cent of the respondents considered helping students with problems to be an important and valuable part of their work, but more than 75 per cent were dissatisfied with the help they gave and less than 20 per cent were very confident in dealing with problems. The need for trained counsellors was expressed as well as for training in counselling skills to be given to lecturers. Given that the pastoral role of the lecturer has been neglected, recommendations for further research were made. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

The study was designed to compare faculty workload systems used by Christian College Coalition schools and their counterparts in public higher education. Research into the relationships between the nature of institutional ownership (public versus private), the existence of a labor management agreement, and faculty workload hours also was performed.Eighty-six percent of respondents use a semester hours system for accounting faculty workload. While chi-square analysis (.05 level) indicated that unionized schools are more likely to be public institutions, faculty hour assignments or the number of faculty activities granted load credit were not found to differ significantly based on unionization.Faculty hour workload assignments in public and private colleges were not found to be significantly different (.05 level). While the sample contained only institutions with a 1991 full-time equivalent enrollment of 3,000 or less, a negative correlation (R= -.2157) between enrollment and faculty workload was found. On average, responding institutions give quantitative load credit for seven activities other than teaching, such as, student teacher supervision, administrative assignments, coaching, and department chairmanship.3 / Department of Educational Leadership

Thesis (PhD) -- University of South Australia, 1997

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1970. / Bibliography: leaves 162-166.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Murdoch University, 1999. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Social Ssciences, Humanities and Education. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 369-403).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Technology, Sydney, 2003.