The Relationship Between the Employment of Part-Time Faculty and Student Degree and/or Certificate Completion in Two-Year Community Colleges

A role for disciplinary societies in supporting community college adjunct faculty

“…On the one hand, in the six colleges that were the focus of this project, students with part‐time instructors had slightly higher course grades in developmental and gateway math and English courses, and similar pass rates in the next course in the sequence, compared with students with similar individual characteristics taught by full‐time faculty in the same courses (Ran & Sanders, 2020). On the other hand, studies also show that students who were taught by adjunct faculty tend to have lower enrollment persistence and weaker longer‐term outcomes (Eagan & Jaeger, 2009; Ran & Xu, 2019; Yu et al., 2015). For example, using a student fixed effects model, Xu (2019) suggests that a student was around 5 percentage points less likely to continue to enroll in a subject area when the introductory course was taught by a part‐time faculty member.…”

Instructional Practices of Part-Time Faculty at Two-Year Institutions: Observations and Implications

“…Although there are a number of studies showing the negative impacts of employment status (part-time status) on various learning outcomes, recent investigation shows otherwise. For example, Yu, Campbell, & Mendoza (2015) analyzed data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) as well as from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS: 04/09), and they employed multilevel logistic regression. The finding indicates that there is no statistical association between employment of contingent faculty at two-your institutions and students degree attainment and certificate completion (Yu et al, 2015).…”

Contingent Faculty at Community Colleges: The Too‐Often Overlooked and Under‐Engaged Faculty Majority

“…Recent research has continued to explore this issue. A study by Yu, Campell, and Mendoza () employed multilevel logistic regression analyses to investigate whether the proportion of part‐time faculty is negatively associated with an individual student's likelihood of degree and/or certificate completion. Like Eagan and Jaegar (), their data included both student‐ and institutional‐level data.…”