| Several key
legislators were interviewed about the intent and spirit of the legislation.
Specific questions about how results would be interpreted by legislative
policy makers were also asked. Interviews with the Texas State University
System's (TSUS) Chancellor and the system attorney further clarified the
importance of this legislation and its effect on the various campuses comprising
the TSUS. Additionally, the first year of study was focused on the faculty
and staff of Sam Houston State University. All tenured and tenure track
faculty were given the opportunity to complete a survey about Perfomance
Evaluation of Tenured Faculty (PETF) and any experiences they had with
the process. An initial list of interview questions was solicited from
all members of the research team. These questions were discussed and a
final set compiled for interviews with the Vice President for Academic
Affairs, the deans, and faculty members who pioneered the process by undergoing
formal review in the first year of implementation. In consultation with
Dr. Christine Licata of the American Association
for Higher Education, we constructed a ten page survey about PETF and
distributed it to all tenured and tenure-track faculty at Sam Houston State
University. Upon the return of the surveys these data were coded and analyzed
to provide an initial picture of Sam Houston’s faculty perceptions about
the post-tenure review process.
In Year II, the interview questions and the survey instrument were revisited. Some minor changes were made in order to clarify certain questions deemed problematic by the research team. We secured the cooperation of the Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs and the Chairs of the Faculty Senates from the other campuses of the TSUS. In Year III, the interview questions and survey instrument were administered in univeristies in the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M System. In all institutions except one, the Faculty Senate Chairs agreed to distribute and collect our survey of tenured and tenure track faculty on their campuses. This collaboration was a great help logistically and may have led to a healthier response rate than otherwise would have been obtained. Comments received from participants in the one institution where this process was not followed support the importance of involving the Faculty Senate in the process. At each institution, survey instruments were sent through campus mail systems to all tenured and tenure track members of the faculty. The instructions provided information about the project and, once completed, the survey was simply folded to expose an address where their completed survey was returned. Response rates varied from one institution to another, however, there was an overall response rate of approximately 30%. In addition to completing the "forced choice" questions on the survey, a significant number of the respondents also provided written comments to elaborate on points raised in the survey. These comments provide interesting insights that help enlighten the interpretation of the survey results, however, we need to emphasize that the sampling procedure employed represents a "convienience sample" and was not drawn through a random process. The results, therefore, must be interpreted with this in mind. Considerable care should be taken before generalizing the results from these surveys to the more general faculty population. The Vice Presidents for Academic Adminsitration and the Faculty Senate Chairs also were extremely helpful in arranging campus interviews. On each campus we interviewed the VPAA, usually all of the deans, and a spectrum of faculty members, including a number of department heads and faculty leaders. As we collected the data from the surveys and the interviews, we met periodically as a group to report our findings and to discuss their potential significance. On three different occasions, preliminary results from the study have been presented at national meetings hosted by the American Association of Higher Education. The specific cross-tabulations and frequencies as well as a copy of the actual survey instrument and interview questions are included in the report available at http://www.shsu.edu/~icc_drl/AAHE.html. |