Stakeholder views on post-tenure review in higher education

Post-Tenure Review: A Research Design

Post-tenure review is believed to be that, which serves as a mechanism to gauge the productivity of an individual, in this case, of faculty member with the end goal of encouraging sustained performance at this prime level (The Texas A&M University System, n.d.). The issue of post-tenure review has sparkled debates for quite some time now with three directions of contentions: one which says that leave the post-tenure review as is, another claiming that review policy should be maintained but make necessary changes, while the last in contention argues that it should be scrapped altogether. Surrounding this contention are the following issues: the need to evaluate faculty performance, the need to update the review processes and make it more relevant, and an adamant take on post-tenure review because of problems with implementation (Licata & Morreale, 2006) .

It is in this light that I am proposing a study on the views of school members on post-tenure review. Specifically, this study will be aiming at the identification of post-tenure review sentiments not only of faculty members and administrators but also of the students as well as they are big stakeholders in educational institutions and consequently of issues surrounding them.

The Research Design and Methods

The research is descriptive in gathering, analyzing, and interpreting primary data through research methods in order to provide a general description of the views of the major education players regarding post-tenure review.

The quantitative research design shall be used, particularly the cross-sectional design often identify with survey research. A random sample will be chosen and asked about their backgrounds and attitudes towards post-tenure review. As this design allow for the examination of relationships between certain properties and dispositions (Nachmias & Nachmias, 1996), this design is deemed appropriate for the research objective.

Variables and Measures

The primary unit of analysis in this study would be individual respondents belonging to one of the ff group: faculty, school administrations, and students.

The primary measure to be investigated would be the disposition and attitude toward post-tenure review to be correlated with individual profile, past experiences, and beliefs/views on education.

Instrumentation

A questionnaire shall be devised by the researcher in order to gather opinion and understand attitudes on post-tenure review. An Educational Administration Disposition Belief Scale shall also be provided to better assess school administrators' views and disposition to better understand their particular disposition in the issue of post-tenure review. This instrument by Charles Southern University (n.d.) has already been used in previous studies conducted. This scale shall be modified to a 5-point scale in order to gauge disposition.

Data Gathering

The timetable for the data gathering part of this research was based on a seven-week schedule. One week shall be allotted for pilot test on one university with about 3 respondents for every sample group. Three (3) weeks shall be allotted for data gathering (i.e. conduct of survey), one week for data processing, and 2 weeks for data interpretation and report-writing.

Analysis

Analysis will begin with checking for bias. Through the use of statistical software, we shall conduct descriptive statistics on attitudes and disposition on post-tenure review which shall later on be correlated with individual profile, past experiences, and beliefs/views on education. To account for the highest influencer of attitudes and dispositions, regression analysis shall also be conducted.