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How Faculty Members View Students

October 3, 2018

Faculty members juggle teaching, grading assignments, and conducting research. They write grants, run labs, and serve on the committees that keep their academic departments and institutions going.
One aspect of their jobs that stands out in both its rewards and its challenges is working with students. Here are key findings from a Chronicle survey of nearly 1,000 faculty members:

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Faculty satisfaction data made possible with support from

Faculty members juggle teaching, grading assignments, and conducting research. They write grants, run labs, and serve on the committees that keep their academic departments and institutions going.
One aspect of their jobs that stands out in both its rewards and its challenges is working with students. Here are key findings from a Chronicle survey of nearly 1,000 faculty members:

Most faculty members find teaching students to be satisfying work.

Out of four key tasks that contribute to a faculty member’s workload — teaching, mentoring students, doing service work, and conducting research — teaching stood out as being satisfying for the largest share.

A greater proportion of adjunct faculty members, who carry out the bulk of instruction at the nation’s colleges, were satisfied with teaching than were their tenure-track peers. At private colleges, faculty passion for teaching outpaces that of their public college peers.

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I’m satisfied with teaching students

Somewhat or very satisfied

  • By Field
  • By Title
  • By Type
By institution type
Overall
90.9%
Business
92.7%
Education
92.7%
Engineering/Math
91.7%
Humanities
87.4%
Science
91.1%
Social Science
87.6%
Visual/Performing Arts
98%
Professor
89.1%
Adjunct/Instructor
94.9%
Private
94.1%
Public
89.1%

They believe students have a high opinion of them.

Higher education has its share of skeptics who don’t think professors are worth the paychecks. But faculty members don’t believe those kinds of critics are in the classroom. Visual and performing-arts faculty members ranked the highest when it came to reporting how much students respected their jobs, with a mean score of 2.47 on a scale of 0 being respected to 10 not respected. Humanities professors aren’t quite as sure of their status with students. Their mean score was 3.46.

My job is respected by my students

on a scale from 0 (respected) to 10 (not respected)

  • By Field
  • By Tenure
  • By Salary
By academic field
Overall
3
Business
3.07
Education
2.85
Engineering/Math
2.78
Humanities
3.46
Science
2.71
Social Science
3.41
Visual/Performing Arts
2.47
Tenured
3.08
Untenured
2.91
less than $50,000
2.67
$50,000 - $74,999
3.31
$75,000 - $99,999
3.06
$100,000 - $124,999
2.87
$125,000 - $149,999
2.59
$150,000 - $174,999
2.13
$175,000 - $199,999
3.3
$200,000+
2.35

Faculty members see the big picture when it comes to teaching.

Every interaction with a student is an opportunity to shape the minds of the next generation. And nearly all faculty members — no matter the discipline, how much they earn, or where they work — believe that teaching has an impact on the lives of students.

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My teaching benefits students and their lives

Agree or strongly agree

  • By Field
  • By Salary
  • By Type
By academic field
Overall
98.5%
Business
100%
Education
97.6%
Engineering/Math
100%
Humanities
98.9%
Science
97.2%
Social Science
97.3%
Visual/Performing Arts
100%
less than $50,000
98.5%
$50,000 - $74,999
99.4%
$75,000 - $99,999
97.8%
$100,000 - $124,999
96.9%
$125,000 - $149,999
100%
$150,000 - $174,999
100%
$175,000 - $199,999
100%
$200,000+
100%
Private
100%
Public
97.6%

Student engagement is a thing of the past.

Overall, faculty members agree that engaging students in class is trickier than ever before. Professors age 70 and up are the most satisfied with the engagement levels of the current generation, along with untenured professors and those in education. The least optimistic outlook on student engagement comes from faculty members in the sciences.

Today's students are more engaged than students of years past

Agree or strongly agree

  • By Field
  • By Tenure
  • By Age
By academic field
Overall
20.7%
Business
25.5%
Education
33.3%
Engineering/Math
20%
Humanities
17.6%
Science
12.7%
Social Science
20%
Visual/Performing Arts
31.6%
Tenured
16.5%
Untenured
26.4%
30-39
20%
40-49
20.2%
50-59
24.2%
60-69
16.7%
70+
28.1%

Teaching used to be more fulfilling.

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Roughly 30 percent of faculty members in business, education, and engineering and math get more satisfaction out of teaching students today than in years past. That’s about equal to the share of untenured faculty members who feel the same.

Teaching today's students is more fulfilling than teaching students of years past

Agree or strongly agree

  • By Field
  • By Tenure
  • By Age
By academic field
Overall
22.1%
Business
30.2%
Education
28.1%
Engineering/Math
29.6%
Humanities
19.7%
Science
18.4%
Social Science
19.3%
Visual/Performing Arts
16.7%
Tenured
17.4%
Untenured
28.7%
30-39
10.5%
40-49
19.6%
50-59
25.7%
60-69
22%
70+
24.2%

Just over half of faculty members agree that teaching is harder work than it used to be.

Business professors feel the strain of working with students most prominently, with 68 percent of them agreeing that students are harder to teach. Among tenured professors, 65.4 percent find teaching more challenging, compared with 59.5 percent of untenured faculty members.

Today’s students are harder to teach than students of years past

Agree or strongly agree

  • By Field
  • By Tenure
  • By Age
By academic field
Overall
62.8%
Business
68%
Education
47.2%
Engineering/Math
63.5%
Humanities
61.7%
Science
62.9%
Social Science
64.9%
Visual/Performing Arts
51%
Tenured
65.4%
Untenured
59.5%
30-39
71.7%
40-49
60%
50-59
62.9%
60-69
63.2%
70+
62.9%
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Source: Survey of 997 faculty members commissioned by The Chronicle of Higher Education, conducted by Maguire Associates, with support from TIAA.

Correction (Oct. 4, 2018, 7:20 p.m.): The data for the subgroup responses have been updated to provide an accurate comparison with the overall averages. The original data for the subgroups included faculty members who responded “I don’t know” or “No opinion,” while the overall averages did not. Now both data sets exclude those faculty members.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Data
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