Study Shows Professors With Tenure Are Worse Teachers

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "We all know the stereotype about tenured college professors: great researchers, lazy teachers. Now Jordan Weissmann writes in the Atlantic that a new study confirms the conventional knowlege that faculty who aren't on the tenure-track appear to do a better job at teaching freshmen undergraduates in their introductory courses than their tenured/tenure-track peers. 'Our results provide evidence that the rise of full-time designated teachers at U.S. colleges and universities may be less of a cause for alarm than some people think, and indeed, may actually be educationally beneficial.' Using the transcripts of Northwestern freshmen from 2001 through 2008, the research team focused on two factors: inspiration and preparation. The team began by asking if taking a class from a tenure or tenure-track professor in their first term later made students more likely to pursue additional courses in that field. That's the inspiration part. Next the researchers wanted to know if students who took their first course in a field from a tenure or tenure-track professor got better grades when they pursued more advanced coursework. That's the preparation part. Controlling for certain student characteristics, freshmen were actually about 7 percentage points more likely to take a second course in a given field if their first class was taught by an adjunct or non-tenure professor and they also tended to get higher grades in those future courses. The pattern held 'for all subjects, regardless of grading standards or the qualifications of the students the subjects attracted' from English to Engineering. The defining trend among college faculties during the past 20 years or so (40, if you really want to stretch back) has been the rise of the adjuncts. 'That said, there is something appealingly intuitive in these results,' concludes Weissmann. 'Professionals who are paid entirely to teach, in fact, make for better teachers. Makes sense, right?'"

Comments

Moo

[Chacham]

Is the difference really tenured or non-tenured? Or is it, younger or older.

Re:Moo

[taiwanjohn]

Adjuncts are also handy for keeping your payroll costs down. Economist Richard Wolff mentions this often in his lectures. It's the same trend toward part-time work that shows up in a lot of industries lately.

My suspicious side notes that this study in TFA is rather convenient for academic administrators who might want to "enhance the institution's bottom line" by reducing the number of tenured faculty. But I'm sure there's no connection, and it would never be used like that. ;-)

Yes, but...

[c]

I hate to talk about correlation/causation, but there's typically some significant demographic differences between profs with and without tenure.

My experience is that tenure-track profs were a heck of a lot younger, meshed well with the students, hadn't spent the last 20 years teaching the course, and were more likely to put in more time and effort on the material. Tenured profs also tend to have a lot of things sucking their time (obviously researchers, but department heads and/or deans are worse), so they dump a lot more on the TA's and are pretty tight for office hours.

I'd be curious to see how things break down when they account for demographic differences. If that's even feasible.

Re:Yes, but...

[EdgePenguin]

This seems fairly obvious. Younger faculty relate better to young students. But such a caveat doesn't fit well with a sensationalist press release/headline.

Its a pretty shitty aspect of western culture (don't know if other cultures experience it or not) that there is mass resentment of other people having any kind of job security. There is the notion that "other people" are all feckless, lazy slobs who must be whipped to work harder by constantly being threatened with redundancy and poverty.

The worse the economy gets, the stronger this feeling. Whip the Others harder, get the economy going. Leave me and people I know alone - we are hardworking families - kick those Others into working longer hours for lower wages; the fuckers are getting off too lightly. Problem is, this is just a feeling. Actual research into motivation finds that an environment of fear, or even promise of big rewards, does not generate productivity in anything other than menial tasks. Unsurprisingly, most people work better if they aren't constantly stressed.