Self-Perceptions of Adjunct Faculty About Their Roles at a Select Community College System
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33423/jhetp.v24i5.7056Keywords:
higher education, adjunct faculty, contingent faculty, part-time faculty, community colleges, faculty supportAbstract
This phenomenological study aimed to explore adjunct faculty roles and emphasis at a community college system. Twelve adjunct faculty members participated in interviews, revealing themes like background experiences, challenges, and institutional culture. Meta-themes included employment fatigue, student care, service provision, role appreciation, and career aspects. Findings could help administrators support adjunct faculty for success and enhance understanding of their experiences. The study contributes to the knowledge base on adjunct faculty in community colleges, suggesting future research directions in this area. The qualitative analysis methods employed included constant comparison, content analysis, correspondence analysis, and nonverbal behavior analysis to delve into adjunct faculty members' perspectives and experiences within the community college system. Recommendations derived from the study aim to provide insights for improving support and addressing the diverse needs of adjunct faculty in community college settings.
References
AFT Higher Education. (2009). American academic: The state of the higher education workforce 1997–2007. American Federation of Teachers.
American Association of University Professors. (1997). Statement from the conference on the growing use of part-time and adjunct faculty. American Association of University Professors. Retrieved from http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/issues/contingent/conferencestatement.htm
Bazeley, P. (2009). Analysing qualitative data: More than ‘identifying themes’. Malaysian Journal of Qualitative Research, 2, 6–22.
Berelson, B. (1952). Content analysis in communicative research. Free Press.
Coalition on the Academic Workforce. (2012, June). A portrait of part-time faculty members: A summary of findings on part-time faculty respondents to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce survey of contingent faculty members and instructors. Retrieved from http://www.academicworkforce.org/CAW_portrait_2012.pdf
Creswell, J.W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among the five approaches (3rd Ed.). Sage.
Curtis, J.W. (2014, April). The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011. American Association of University Professors.
Curtis, J.W., & Jacobe, M. (2006). Consequences: An increasingly contingent faculty. AAUP Contingent Faculty Index 2006.
Denham, M.A., & Onwuegbuzie, A.J. (2013). Beyond words: Using nonverbal communication data in research to enhance thick description and interpretation. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 12, 670–696. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691301200137
Ehrenberg, R.G., & Zhang, L. (2005). Do tenured and tenure-track faculty matter? Journal of Human Resources, 40, 647–659. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.XL.3.647
Ekman, P. (1999). Basic emotions. In T. Dalgleish, & M. Power (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 45–60). John Wiley & Sons.
Gappa, J.M., & Leslie, D.W. (1993). The invisible faculty: Improving the status of part- timers in higher education. Jossey-Bass.
Glaser, B.G. (1965). The constant comparative method of qualitative analysis. Social Problems, 12, 436–445. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.1965.12.4.03a00070
Glaser, B.G., & Strauss, A.L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine.
Gorden, R.L. (1980). Interviewing: Strategy, techniques, and tactics. Dorsey.
Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903
Hahs-Vaughn, D.L., & Onwuegbuzie, A.J. (2006). Estimating and using propensity score analysis with complex samples. The Journal of Experimental Education, 75(1), 31–65.
Harré, R., & van Langenhove, L. (1999). Positioning theory. Blackwell.
Hollway, W. (1984). Gender difference and the production of subjectivity. In J. Henriques, W. Hollway, C. Urwin, C. Venn, & V. Walkerdine (Eds.), Changing the subject: Psychology, social regulation and subjectivity (pp. 227–263). Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Holmes, L. (2001, July). Decontaminating the concepts of ‘learning’ and ‘competence’: education and modalities of emergent identity. Paper presented at Second International Conference on Critical Management Studies, Manchester, England.
Holmes, L. (2013). Competing perspectives on graduate employability: Possession, position or process? Studies in Higher Education, 38, 538–554. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.587140
Jacobs, F. (1998). Using part-time faculty more effectively. New Directions for Community Colleges, 104, 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.10401
Janesick, V.J. (2004). Stretching exercises for qualitative researchers. Sage.
Kezar, A. (2012). Spanning the great divide between tenure-track faculty and non-tenure track faculty. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 44, 6–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2012.728949
Kezim, B., Pariseau, S.E., & Quinn, F. (2005). Is grade inflation related to faculty status? Journal of Education for Business, 80, 358–364. https://doi.org/10.3200/JOEV.80.6.358-364
Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Sage.
Lederman, D. (2007, March 28). Inexorable march to part-time faculty. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/28/faculty
Lederman, D. (2019, November 27). The faculty shrinks, but tilts to full-time. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/27/federal-data-show-proportion-instructors-who-work-full-time-rising
McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind. Chicago University Press.
Michailidis, G. (2007). Correspondence analysis. In N.J. Salkind (Ed.), Encyclopedia of measurement and statistics (pp. 191–194). Sage.
National Center for Education Statistics, & Digest of Education Statistics. (2010). Table 253. Employees in degree-granting institutions, by sex, employment status, control and type of institution, and primary occupation: Selected years, fall 1989 through fall 2009. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_253.asp
Onwuegbuzie, A.J., & Byers, V.T. (2014). An exemplar for combining the collection, analysis, and interpretations of verbal and nonverbal data in qualitative research. International Journal of Education, 4(1), 183–246.
Onwuegbuzie, A.J., & Collins, K.M.T. (2007). A typology of mixed methods sampling designs in social science research. The Qualitative Report, 12(2), 281–316. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1638&context=tqr
Onwuegbuzie, A.J., & Collins, K.M.T. (2014). The role of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory in enhancing interpretive consistency in mixed research. International Journal of Research in Education Methodology, 5, 651–661. https://doi.org/10.24297/ijrem.v5i2.3910
Onwuegbuzie, A.J., & Collins, K.M.T. (2017). The role of sampling in mixed methods research: Enhancing inference quality. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 69(Supplement 2), 133–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-017-0455-0
Onwuegbuzie, A.J., Dickinson, W.B., Leech, N.L., & Zoran, A.G. (2010). Toward more rigor in focus group research in stress and coping and beyond: A new mixed research framework for collecting and analyzing focus group data. In G.S. Gates, W.H. Gmelch, & M. Wolverton (Series Eds.) & K.M.T. Collins, A.J. Onwuegbuzie, & Q.G. Jiao (Vol. Eds.), Toward a broader understanding of stress and coping: Mixed methods approaches (Vol. 5, pp. 243–285). The Research on Stress and Coping in Education Series. Information Age Publishing.
Phillippe, K. (Ed.). (2000). National profile of community colleges: Trends and statistics (3rd Ed.). Community College Press.
Provalis Research. (2016). QDA Miner (Version 5.0.24) [Computer software]. Author.
Shuetz, P. (2002). Instructional practices of part-time and full-time faculty. New Directions for Community Colleges, 118, 39–46. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.62
Smith, C.V. (2010). The impact of part-time faculty on student retention: A case study in higher education [Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Missouri].
Thirolf, K.Q. (2012). The faculty identities of community college adjuncts teaching in the humanities: A discourse analysis study. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 36, 269–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2012.637864
Wallin, D.L. (2004). Valuing professional colleagues: Adjunct faculty in community and technical colleges. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 28, 373–391. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920490424087
Walsh, S. (2002, October 29). Study finds significant increases in number of part-time and non-tenure-track professors. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com
