Faculty perception insights obtained from faculty interviews during the development of the Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession in Higher Education (PTaP.HE) instrument

Abstract

Results from the Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession (PTaP) instrument-which measures views students have of the grade 7-12 teaching career-prompted the development of a parallel instrument to measure the perceptions of the grade 7-12 teaching profession in the eyes of those advising and influencing student opinions of the profession: the faculty. Thirty faculty interviews were conducted across four different institutions of higher education as part of the development of the Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession in Higher Education (PTaP.HE) instrument, which investigates faculty opinions, accuracy of information, and thoughts regarding grade 7-12 teaching. The instrument measures the perceived supportive (or unsupportive) nature of a department towards the teaching profession, guide teacher preparation organizations on how to approach faculty, and correlate students' perceptions with their influencers. Faculty interviews verified statement interpretation consistency, while also providing anecdotal insights into faculty views.

Faculty perceptions of grade 7-12 math and science teaching as a career: Evidence from a reduced-basis factor analysis of the PTAP.HE Instrument

“…Analyzing PTaP.HE survey responses based on the factors that emerged from the RBFA provide further insight into faculty thinking about the teaching career. In previous work, interviews identified that faculty believe they are supportive of students who want to become teachers [7]. This was validated by these data that show Supportive Department Messaging, Career Options, Teaching is a STEM Profession, and Teaching is an Attractive STEM Career, all have high (over 70%) average percent favorable scores.…”

“…Perception surveys and concept inventories (such as the PTaP [9] and CLASS [8]) follow a general but consistent four-phase development and validation structure as summarized by Adams and Wieman [10] and to which the PTaP.HE development generally adheres. Here we will focus on the validation efforts in Phase Four as Phases One through Three were described in previous work [7].…”

“…Previous work [7], reported on the first phases of the development and validation of the Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession in Higher Education (PTaP.HE) (pronounced P-Taffy) instrument, which measures a faculty's perceptions of grade 7-12 teaching as a career. This work included an indepth analysis of interviews with faculty.…”

“…This work included an indepth analysis of interviews with faculty. In those interviews, it was found that many faculty hold inaccurate perceptions about the teaching profession around happiness, retirement, autonomy, salary, retention, and student interest in the career [7].…”

Applying Voting Theory to Mastery Grading; A Study of Faculty Interpretation of Course-Level Categorical-Score Distributions

“…1 to 5) [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]; binning responses into a binary categorization (e.x. agree or disagree) [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]; or binning into a simple point scale and then averaging (e.x. binned point values of -1,0,1 and then averaging) [35][36][37][38].…”