Faculty Development Practices at Florida’s Public Community Colleges: Perceptions of Academic Administrators, Faculty Development Practitioners, and Full-time Faculty Members

Faculty development is a means by which institutions can assist faculty in addressing the challenges they face each day in the classroom. Certainly the importance of faculty development is never more evident than within community colleges where access is provided to all students through an open-door admission policy which often produces a more diverse student body creating numerous institutional challenges. Overtime, on many campuses, faculty development practices have come to play a prominent role in attending to these challenges. This study: (a) examined faculty development practices offered in the last three years by Florida’s 22 public community colleges and determined if the total number of different practices offered as well as the different types of practices were related to institutional size as measured by the number of full-time faculty (b) assessed and compared the relative perceived value of these practices as viewed by full-time faculty, faculty development practitioners, and academic administrators in these institutions, and (c) assessed and compared the relative perceived value of faculty development practices as viewed by full-time faculty within six different discipline areas. An original web-based questionnaire was used to gather data from the chief academic officers, faculty development practitioners, and full-time faculty at Florida’s 22 public community colleges. Chief Academic Officers of 18 of the institutions reported that all 42 faculty development practices included in the survey were offered by at least one institution in the last three years. Results also revealed clearly that on all campuses, many full-time faculty were unaware that these practices were offered. No significant relationship was found between the total number of practices offered and the number of full-time faculty employed by institution. A relationship was noted between institutional size and the cluster of faculty development practices labeled general teaching enhancement practices. The mean perceived value by each respondent group on 42 faculty development practices reported three of six clusters revealed significant differences between fulltime faculty and chief academic officers. The perceived value ratings of faculty across six different discipline groups were observed for each of the six clusters of faculty development practices. Implications for future research were identified