Teaching and research at a large university: Case studies of science professors

Abstract

Current STEM workforce issues and retention problems faced by postsecondary STEM education have renewed research efforts in this arena. A review of literature on STEM professors indicates that although this population reports difficulties integrating teaching and research responsibilities, there have not yet been any qualitative studies conducted to deeply investigate the complexities of managing teaching, research, and service. This work utilized a set of four phenomenological case studies conducted over a 10‐month period to address the following research question: How do individuals in a sample of tenure‐track science professors prioritize teaching among their other professional roles and responsibilities? Contrary to literature speculation, the results of this study indicate that the participants make decisions about the way they allocate limited time in an unlimited work environment based on their intrinsic, personal career goals and aspirations and appear to be only minimally affected by external pressures to “prioritize research over teaching.” Furthermore, all of the participants in the study indicated that other than research training, they received little to no preparation for their jobs. These findings provide discipline‐based education researchers with points of interest for further study and provide professional development stakeholders with data for the design of educational support programs. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54: 937–960, 2017

The STEM Faculty Instructional Barriers and Identity Survey (FIBIS): development and exploratory results

“…We also found that FIBIS was able to identify how STEM faculty internal characteristics (e.g., teaching identity, beliefs) played an important role in implementation of EBIPs at different levels of effort. These findings from FIIBS aligns with prior research suggesting that faculty background and beliefs coming into the university plays a key role in how resistant faculty are to implementing EBIPs (White, 2016;Robert & Carlsen, 2017;Oleson & Hora, 2014). Further, when asked what faculty were dissatisfied with in their teaching using EBIPs, internal influences relating to beliefs, confidence, and knowledge were reported most often for faculty in this pilot study.…”

“…Faculty, particularly those at researchintensive universities, can identify with both the teacher/ educator profession and the research profession. However, many times, these identities can be in tension, which may be due to the institutional and individual value placed on these two responsibilities (e.g., Brownell & Tanner, 2012;Fairweather, 2008;Robert & Carlsen, 2017).…”

“…This may suggest that, despite a strong teaching identity, their own perceptions may negatively impact this identity. Robert and Carlsen (2017) explored the tension of teaching and research through a case study approach of four professors and concluded that personal career goals and aspirations, likely derived during their graduate school experiences, may be leading faculty to disvalue teaching. Further, Brownell and Tanner (2012) hypothesized that tensions between "scientists' professional identities-how they view themselves and their work in the context of their discipline and how they define their professional status-may be an invisible and underappreciated barrier to undergraduate science teaching reform, one that is not often discussed, because very few of us reflect upon our professional identity and the factors that influence it" (p. 339).…”

The Lecture Machine: A Cultural Evolutionary Model of Pedagogy in Higher Education

“…Institutional pressures surrounding a faculty position set the incentives for faculty ( Henderson and Dancy, 2007 ). This means that faculty must learn how to appropriately balance time and effort between research and pedagogy to meet the expectations for tenure and promotion in their departments, as well as at the university level ( Hardré et al , 2010 ; Savkar and Lokere, 2010 ; Robert and Carlsen, 2017 ). Departments may provide guidelines for faculty—such as 40% research, 40% teaching—but such ratios are abstract administrative expectations and usually not tied to how much time faculty will need to spend on research to meet tenure standards.…”

“…Departments may provide guidelines for faculty—such as 40% research, 40% teaching—but such ratios are abstract administrative expectations and usually not tied to how much time faculty will need to spend on research to meet tenure standards. While some research suggests that extrinsic institutional incentives drive faculty to emphasize their focus on research ( Leslie, 2002 ; Light et al , 2009 ; Anderson et al , 2011 ; Bradforth et al , 2015 ), other evidence suggests that faculty may be more motivated by intrinsic motivations ( Robert and Carlsen, 2017 ; Shortlidge et al , 2017 ). During the pre-tenure phase, academics at research-focused institutions are further incentivized to continue prioritizing research and grants.…”