Research Article:

Professional development (PD): Improving utility and faculty opinions

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The better prepared that faculty members feel about their courses, the more effective they believe them to be for their students. Faculty planning and preparation can take multiple forms, with institutional-provided professional development (PD) being one of the more common. Our research indicates that faculty professional development can be very impactful, and institutions should consider how to reach more faculty with quality professional development options.

Faculty PD Use

4 out of 5 faculty had access to professional development (PD) provided or sponsored by their institution during the 2023-24 school year. However, almost a third of those who had access did not use or participate in the PD activity over the year. Overall, 3 out of 5 faculty respondents said they had and used the PD provided by their institution in the last year.
Faculty reporting expected change in course materials and extend of changes

Faculty reporting expected change in course materials and extend of changes

Faculty PD Ratings

Overall, most faculty rated their PD experiences highly. Almost half of all faculty who had PD gave it a relatively high score of 80/100 or higher. The largest block of scores were 90/100 or higher with just over a quarter of all faculty. Just 11% gave a completely failing grade, less than 50/100 and another 12% the equivalent of an F with 50-59/100. There were 28% of faculty who found their PD alright but maybe not a passing grade – the equivalent of a C (70’s) or D (60’s).
Faculty reporting expected change in course materials and extend of changes

Scores did range by discipline, and in general, STEM fields gave lower scores than humanities. Lower ratings were given by Math, Computer Science and Natural Science faculty. The best scores were given by Linguistics, Education, and Arts and Literature faculty.

There was no difference in scores based on faculty course level, modality (fully online, blended, or fully face-to-face), or curriculum publisher.

Faculty Perceptions of Curricula Quality

The most common topic for PD is related to the course contents, materials, or teaching strategies for the faculty. Our data suggests that there is a correlation – and perhaps direct relationship – between faculty PD ratings and course material satisfaction. Faculty who gave their PD a score of 80/100 or better were much more likely to also rate their curriculum as 80/100 or better (82%). In contrast, only 64% of faculty with PD ratings 50-79/100 gave a curriculum satisfaction above 80. It is even lower for “failing” PD ratings: just 51% of faculty gave a curriculum satisfaction above 80% and 16% also gave their curriculum a failing score, four times higher than 50-79/100 and 80/100 or higher groups.
Faculty reporting expected change in course materials and extend of changes

Bay View Analytics, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, conducts annual, national surveys of faculty and administrators on topics related to curricula adoption, and tracking awareness levels of Open Educational Resources (OER) — learn more here.