Download Free Community College Faculty Attitudes About Adult Students Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Community College Faculty Attitudes About Adult Students and write the review.

This issue offers multiple perspectives on the ways community college faculty fulfill their complex roles. The first chapters draw on data from national surveys to provide a broad overview of the contemporary community college professoriate. Chapter authors also focus on community college faculty's central responsibility: teaching. The volume next examines the practices and attitudes of particular groups of instructors, including part-timers, female faculty, and faculty of color. The concluding chapters explore faculty professional development, the formation of community within the community colleges, and the development of the professoriate as a profession. This is the 118th issue of the Jossey-Bass series New Directions for Community Colleges.
Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic. The Handbook focuses on a comprehensive set of central areas of study in higher education that encompasses the salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries undertaken in the international higher education community. Each annual volume contains chapters on current important issues pertaining to college students and faculty, organization and administration, curriculum and instruction, policy, diversity issues, economics and finance, history and philosophy, community colleges, advances in research methodology and other key aspects of higher education administration. The series is fortunate to have attracted annual contributions from distinguished scholars throughout the world.
As community colleges focus on increasing accountability, a growing number of community colleges have implemented professional development programs. Studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of faculty professional development, yet faculty participation and attitude toward training may impede improvement efforts. Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative study was to increase understanding of Texas community college faculty attitudes and perceptions about faculty (teacher training) professional development. This quantitative study identified faculty characteristics, such as teaching experience, level of teacher training received, and academic degree earned; as well as environmental factors including college culture, administrative support, colleague influence, funding, time availability, self-efficacy and faculty perceptions toward development activities. A Likert-style online survey was developed and administered at 14 Texas community campuses, where 997 faculty members participated. The faculty list included campus members that taught at least one course in a typical semester, including teaching administrators, deans, part-time faculty, and full-time faculty. The Likert items mostly consisted of five points based on the scales from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree," or from "Never" to "Very Frequently." Other questions established participation in faculty development activities and demographic information such as teaching load, prior teacher training, academic degree earned, teaching discipline, teaching experience, and position at the college. Survey data were analyzed using Excel and SPSS statistical software. One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and multiple regressions was performed to determine the relationship among survey variables. A priori level of significance for all statistical analyses was set at an alpha level of 0.05. Participants included 997 Texas community college faculty members at 14 campuses. Results indicated that (a) differences exist in the ways these various faculty groups experience and value training opportunities; (b) campus culture, administrative support, and funding, are statistically significant predictors of faculty member participation, attitudes, and perceptions; (c) faculty members' self-efficacy is significant in predicting attitudes about professional development; and (d) faculty beliefs in their teaching capacity influence their motivation and behavior in the classroom. The researcher recommends that leadership (a) legitimize professional development by promoting, supporting, and participating in strategically aligned programs; (b) evolve training strategies to incorporate diverse objectives, learning strategies, and shared culture for all generations and experience levels; (c) present training using best practices, reflection, and a comprehensive approach; and (d) model high-achieving systems of education. Several recommendations for future research include (a) continually and consistently collect and analyze data regarding faculty attitudes and faculty experiences; (b) evaluate how faculty development training affects student learning; (c) expand research to systems of education that reflect high-achieving models and alignment with the desired culture and strategic directions.