<p>The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate the adjunct faculty's perception of professional development and support services offered and needed at Tidewater Community College, a multicampus community college. This study involved adjunct faculty only. A survey was created and contained 58 survey questions. The majority of these were Likert-like items based on a scale from <i>Strongly Agree</i>, indicating a very important need or value for the adjunct, to <i>Strongly Disagree</i>, indicating a not important at all level of perceived value. In order to determine if other factors influenced the perception of professional development or support services, other questions asked for demographic information, such as education level, age, number of years in the professional field, and discipline/department. Except for education level, each of the independent variables accepted the null hypothesis that there is no statistically significant difference between adjunct faculty perception of institutional supports and the professional development and support services offered in terms of the independent variables. Findings from this study indicated that adjunct faculty perceived that professional development and support services are significant in improving their teaching and important to their role and success. Adjuncts want to better serve students and connect with the institution. Orientation and mentoring are highly regarded and requested to help integrate adjunct faculty into the college. The data indicated that adjunct faculty members want professional development that meets their specific instructional and student-centered needs that is offered during more accommodating times. The current professional development offerings are not well-attended and do not seem to meet the specific needs of this adjunct population. It behooves the administration to further investigate what is currently being done to support adjuncts and to address a means to improve the delivery and execution of all institutional supports. While this study provides useful information related to one community college, it is important that each community college examine closely its personal investment relative to the institutional support it provides to adjunct faculty members. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3571529 |
| Date | 20 September 2013 |
| Creators | Bowers, Okema S. |
| Publisher | Regent University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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