The Non-Existence of Faculty Development Theory

Theoretical Thursday

The Non-Existence of Faculty Development Theory

One who dares to teach, must never cease to learn. – John Cotton Dana

Graphic courtesy MyCuteGraphics.com

In my recent study of Student Development Theory, I was surprised to discover that Faculty Development Theory does not truly exist.

According to McKeachie (1991), when faculty development emerged as a role of the university in the 1960’s, the theoretical approaches used to support practices at the time were behaviorism, the sensitivity training movement, and the eclectic application of principles of learning and individual differences. Later, student learning became the focus with wide acceptance of Kolb’s Theory of Learning Styles. Yet, even 24 years ago, McKeachie realized the need for a more devoted focus to elements of teaching, saying “Our new theories will need to deal with helping faculty members develop strategies for training students to be more active, mindful learners and thinkers” (p. 6). 

So where is this body of research today? Where have the collegiate educational scholars addressed this need since?

In recognition of this lack within research, this past summer, Katrina Meyer and Vickie Murrell surveyed professionals within the business of faculty development, asking what theories informed their practices. Two theories emerged as predominant, Adult Learning Theory and Transformative Learning Theory. However, the researchers did find that theory was not truly a basis of faculty development practice as a general rule. Therefore, Meyer and Murrell (2014) put forth that, “If faculty development providers and evaluators wish to establish their practices on more solid theoretical footing, more research that is based on theory (or seeks to establish new theory as is possible in qualitative research) is required” (para. 15).

Alan Altany in his June 2012 Faculty Focus article Professional Faculty Development: The Necessary Fourth Leg, provides 11 important reasons ongoing faculty development is crucial to the profession. My favorite reason he lists is #10: “Professional development is the conscience of the professional academic. It makes teachers aware of what they do, asks them why, and challenges them to continually do it better.” Without reflective practices, updated skills, and encouragement to improve, faculty have no real motivation to stay current in their teaching methods or curricular materials. 

What will certainly be of help to us as faculty is the extensive compilation of best practices by Mundy, Kupczynski, Ellis, and Salgado (2012) in the article, Setting the Standard for Faculty Professional Development in Higher Education. This is the most comprehensive list of professional standards I have found in my Faculty Development research. I encourage you to review them, as many are content-area specific and most all have been created within the past decade with technology applications in mind.  The authors recognized the lack of consistent collegiate standards, saying:

“Knowing these “best practices” are missing from many of our university and college classrooms, we have a moral and ethical responsibility as educators to teach in a manner that provides the best learning environment and provide the best learning opportunities for every student we teach. This can best be accomplished by developing a comprehensive professional development series that is easily accessible to all university professors, high school teachers with dual credit courses, as well as undergraduate and graduate teacher education students” (Mundy, Kupczynski, Ellis, & Salgado, 2012, p. 7).

So, this is my goal as a future Higher Education Administrator: to create this easily-accessible, comprehensive professional development series. Do you know of anyone already working on this? Please share!

Add your voice to our January Survey, and join me tomorrow for our Weekly Wrap-Up on maintaining academic rigor and standards!

See you then,

Melynda

@Melynda_Conner

#TCBHigherEd

References:

Altany, A. (2012). Professional faculty development: The necessary fourth leg. Faculty Focus. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/faculty-development/professional-faculty-development-the-necessary-fourth-leg/

McKeachie, W. J. (1991). What theories underlie the practice of faculty development? To Improve the Academy, Paper 219. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/podimproveacad/219

Meyer, K. & Murrell, V. (2014). A national study of theories and their importance for faculty development for online teaching. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 17(2). Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer172/Meyer_Murrell172.html

 

Mundy, M., Kupczynski, L., Ellis, J. D., & Salgado, R. L. (2012). Setting the standard for faculty professional development in higher education. Journal of Academic and Business Ethics, 5, 1-9. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1011485641?accountid=458