College Policies Off-Target in Fostering Faculty Development.
This study examines the organizational factors and institutional policies that influence faculty participation in faculty development programs and changes in teaching behavior. The questions posed are: Does the degree of participation in faculty development activities and the degree of changed teaching differ significantly between colleges in which teaching effectiveness is systematically evaluated and colleges in which it is not? Is there a different level of participation between colleges in which changed teaching behavior highly influences the rewards of promotion, tenure, and salary increases and colleges in which it does not? This study of administrative policies in 80 colleges and of faculty behavior in 4 colleges reveals no significant difference in either case. The findings of this study support the claim that faculty are innermotivated persons whose professional values move them to seek the rewards intrinsic to teaching regardless of the institutional policies that support that effort. Within the last decade, a wide range of faculty development programs have been established in over 50 percent of this country's colleges and universities [3]. As these programs have developed, institutions have assumed increasing responsibility for providing opportunities to foster instructional improvement as well as the professional growth of faculty members. For this reason, an examination of the organizational factors that influence such programs appeared useful. The present study seems especially timely since contradictory opinions now exist regarding which policies for evaluating and rewarding teaching