AAC&U News | October 2005 | Facts & Figures

Faculty Survey Reveals Support for Liberal Education Goals, Dissatisfaction with Student Preparation

Results of the latest faculty survey from the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI), reported in The American College Teacher: National Norms for the 2004-2005 HERI Faculty Survey, shed new light on the attitudes of full-time faculty toward educational goals, pedagogical practices, academic preparation, and other issues. Among the key findings of the report is that faculty strongly support "developing the practical skills embedded in a liberal education." The survey also reveals that while most faculty are satisfied with their jobs, only half are satisfied with the quality of their students and many believe that incoming students are underprepared. This finding stands in contrast to the results of HERI's 2004 freshman survey, which found that "record numbers of today's entering college students rate themselves as 'above average' or 'highest 10% academically.'"

Part of the University of California at Los Angeles, HERI has conducted its survey of full-time faculty every three years since 1989. The survey involves more than fifty-five thousand faculty at some five hundred two-year and four-year institutions, but does not include part-time and adjunct faculty.

FINDINGS

How Faculty View Educational Goals

Ninety-nine percent of full-time faculty consider developing students' ability to think critically "very important" or "essential," making it the most strongly emphasized faculty goal for undergraduate education.
Other goals strongly endorsed by the faculty include helping students to master knowledge in a discipline (94 percent) and promoting students' ability to write effectively (87 percent).
Sixty-one percent of faculty consider preparing students for responsible citizenship a "very important" or "essential" goal, and 59 percent consider the development of moral character as very important or essential.
Preparing undergraduates for employment after college and for graduate and advanced education is deemed a "very important" or "essential" goal by 73 and 61 percent of the faculty, respectively, but just 30 percent believe that the chief benefit of a college education is that it increases one's earning power.
Nine in ten faculty believe that the educational experience of all students is improved by having a racially and ethnically diverse student body.

Academic Preparation of Entering College Students

Across all types of colleges and universities, only slightly more than one-third (36 percent) of full-time faculty respondents agree that faculty on their campus feel that most students are well prepared academically.
Faculty at two-year colleges and public four-year colleges are less inclined than private university faculty to view their students as academically well prepared.
Forty-one percent of faculty at all types of institutions say that "most" of their students lack the basic skills needed for college-level work.
Working with what they consider to be underprepared students is a source of at least some stress for 56 percent of faculty.

DID YOU KNOW?

Early-career faculty are more likely than mid- and advanced-career faculty to use student-centered teaching methods such as cooperative learning, student presentations, and journaling.
More than three-quarters of full-time faculty report overall job satisfaction, up from fifteen years ago.
More full-time professors today describe their political orientation as "liberal" or "far left" than fifteen years ago, while the number describing their views as "middle-of-the-road" has declined.

More information about the 2004-5 faculty survey is available on HERI's Web site.