Teaching Prowess and Pedagogical Effectiveness of Adjunct Faculty

In an age of workplace transformation, institutions are experiencing mounting pressure to provide quality education to arm students with the skills they need to be successful in the workplace. To meet these demands, universities are adding adjunct faculty as part-time educators to focus on experiential and career-readiness education. Despite the increasing dependency on adjunct faculty in higher education, higher education institutions offer inadequate responses to the needs of their adjunct faculty. This academic culture of limited support adds to the struggle that adjunct faculty face in balancing their new professional identity as an educator, the need to develop their teaching skills, and the need for more options to facilitate expanding their students’ learning. The goals of this research study included investigating students’ perception of adjunct faculty’s teaching effectiveness and teaching prowess; the professional development needs of adjunct faculty; and from the teachers’ perspectives, the impact on their teaching prowess and pedagogical effectiveness. Five key findings emerged from this study: 1) adjunct faculty are passionate and committed to enriching students’ learning beyond the classroom; 2) adjunct faculty developed their professional competencies and teaching style on the job; 3) adjunct faculty have their academic culture preferences; 4) adjunct faculty are willing to share and state their professional development needs; 5) adjunct faculty want to be appreciated for their contributions to students’ learning. Additionally, the quantitative data analysis suggests that there are no significant differences between students’ perception and adjunct faculty’s perception of adjunct faculty teaching effectiveness and teaching prowess