Rigorous Evaluations of Faculty Development Programs

Abstract

Prior research has called for rigorous evaluations of programs designed to improve college teaching, mostly in response to the missing literature supporting its practice. purpose of this review was to explore whether such evaluations have taken place since the last examination in 1991. From a systematic review of nine leading publication sources known for reporting faculty development evaluation studies between 1992 and 2007, only a limited number of studies assessing improvement programs that met best practice standards were found. This overall finding indicates that we have yet to incorporate recommendations from previous reviews that advocate the need for evaluation precision. Such obstacles standing in our way include the limited nature of faculty development interventions and lack of evaluation training. Nevertheless, rigor is needed, and suggestions for improvement include implementing unconventional designs with recommended evaluation principles. Suppose you are a faculty developer leading an intervention designed to improve faculty members' ability. You understand intuitively that any professional development is better than none. But what if you were questioned? if one participant asks, What proof is there that this program will improve my teaching? question is simple enough. There's just one problem - except for word of mouth from other participants and perhaps developers, there is a limited scholarly base to inform faculty development programming decisions, at least according to the last literature review in 1991 . In fact, you might be unable to tell this participant what valid program practices are most and least effective in terms of improvement or student learning, how much their teaching will likely change, or what strategies seem to work better with different populations of teachers or students. This concern of missing a strong scholarly base has run throughout the faculty development literature. In 1978, Hoyt and Howard provided an extensive review of faculty development evaluations and concluded, It is important to continue and expand these efforts so that the future of faculty development programs may be guided by rationality and sound information rather than by emotion or political considerations (p.37). In 1981, Levinson-Rose and Menges conducted another review and reported, The relevant literature is larger than we expected and of lower quality than we hoped (p. 417). Ten years later, Weimer and Lenz (1991) reported a similar conclusion, instructional interventions are being used with virtually no empirical justification as to their effectiveness (p. 327); they, too, stated an optimistic hope for future research, Hopefully, those who review the literature at the end of this decade will tell a different story (p. 330). As a result, these and other researchers have called for the need of rigorous evaluations on faculty development programs, especially those designed to improve teaching and student learning. Faculty developers seem to agree. Sordnelli, Austin, Eddy and Beach (2006) report in their extensive survey of faculty developers, the desire to have a scholarly foundation for practices and to improve their own scholarship are part of developers unfinished agendas (pg. 166). This scholarly base is not only needed to inform faculty development programming decisions and developers' own practices, but also to model and help recommend the practices faculty clients should be implementing for their own teaching. Most faculty development programs aspire to a standard different than most service centers: we intend not to be just a service to faculty, but also an example. Most faculty development programs encourage faculty to look at the effects of their teaching practices on student learning as part of the consultation process, workshops, and learning communities. Therefore, faculty development programs would be out of step with their faculty clients if they do not include quality evaluation as part of the programming of a center. …