Assessing What Professors Do: An Introduction to Academic Performance Appraisal in Higher Education

198 Pages·1994·9.74 MB·English

by  D M Bialik

ASSESSING WHAT PROFESSORS DO
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Assessing What Professors Do
AN INTRODUCTION TO ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL IN HIGHER
EDUCATION
David A. Dilts, Lawrence J. Haber,
and Donna Bialik
Contributions to the Study of Education,
Number 61
GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dilts, David A.
Assessing what professors do : an introduction to academic
performance appraisal in higher education / David A. Dilts, Lawrence
J. Haber, and Donna Bialik.
p. cm.—(Contributions to the study of education, ISSN
0196-707X ; no. 61)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-313-26761-8 (alk. paper)
1. College teachers—United States—Rating of. I. Haber,
Lawrence J. II. Bialik, Donna. III. Title. IV. Series.
LB2333.D55 1994
378.1'22—<ic20 93-30978
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 1994 by David A. Dilts, Lawrence J. Haber, and Donna Bialik
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-30978
ISBN: 0-313-26761-8
ISSN: 0196-707X
First published in 1994
Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 32
Contents
Preface vii
PART I: ETHICS AND THE
PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL SYSTEM
1. An Introduction to Faculty Performance Appraisal 3
2. The Criteria for Faculty Performance Appraisal 13
3. Ethics and Evidence in
Academic Performance Appraisal 23
PART H: PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL CRITERIA
4. Assessing What Professors Do: Citizenship,
Research, Service and Teaching 39
5. The Evaluation of Teaching in Universities 47
6. The Evaluation of Research 65
7. The Evaluation of Service and Citizenship 79
PART III: EXTERNAL INFLUENCE ON APPRAISAL
8. The Law and Performance Appraisal 93
9. Collective Bargaining and Faculty Evaluation 103
VI Contents
10. Epilogue: Rewards and Results 109
Appendix: Selected Excerpts from
AAUP Policy Documents and Reports 113
Selected, Annotated Bibliography 173
Index 183
Preface
This book is written for the academician, administrator and anyone else
interested in faculty performance appraisal or evaluation in higher
education. While there has been a significant amount written concerning
the evaluation of faculty performance, there has been little attempt to
integrate issues of ethics in the appraisal literature. The fundamental
purpose of this book is to examine faculty performance appraisal. How
ever, the authors' approach is to also integrate discussions of ethical and
legal obligations into the presentation.
The examination of faculty performance appraisal is a controversial
topic. Much of what has been written and much of what is known has come
from the perspective of scholars in education. The authors of this book are
economists writing from the perspective of economists concerned with
education and faculty performance. Rigorous economic models have been
avoided to make the text accessible to all who might benefit. Further, the
authors are faculty members in a school of business, and the orientation
of the book is focused on business and social science programs. This is
not to say that the authors support the notion that universities should
emulate business practices in personnel or service delivery decisions. In
fact, academic decision making should not and cannot be constrained by
profit-maximizing goals if educational progress is the goal. However,
certain economic and business perspectives provide useful insights for the
practice of faculty performance appraisals. As such, it is believed that this
book will be a useful guide to novice administrators and/or faculty
members faced with the task of helping to create or attempting to survive
Vlll Preface
an ethical evaluation program for their academic units. It reports on much
of the literature on evaluation, but is primarily a pragmatic guide to
evaluation.
The main text of this book is organized in three parts. Part I contains
three chapters concerned with the structure and ethics of evaluation. A
comparison of performance and non-performance based personnel
decisions is offered, after which the basic procedures followed in
personnel evaluation are examined. These procedures provide a frame of
reference for the following two chapters that deal with criteria used in
performance appraisals and rules of evidence used in those appraisals.
Part II begins with a discussion of general considerations in the estab
lishment of the appropriate mix of professorial activities (i.e., teaching,
research and service) to be evaluated. What follows is a review of many
of the specific criteria reported in the literature used to evaluate faculty
performance in teaching, in research and in service. Due attention is also
paid to the interrelations among these areas.
Part in offers a discussion of the environmental influences on faculty
performance appraisal. In particular, the effects of the legal system and of
unionization and collective bargaining upon professorial performance
appraisal at universities in the United States are examined.
In an appendix, the book contains the policy statements of the American
Association of University Professors (AAUP) relevant to personnel eval
uation. Finally, there is an annotated bibliography of selected references
concerning faculty performance appraisal.
There are many persons who have contributed significantly to this
project and who deserve a public statement of our gratitude. Linda Haber
did a great deal of proofreading and made many useful comments. Clar
ence R. Deitsch suggested several improvements. Penny Herber typed
several pages of this manuscript and was always willing to help. The
editors at Greenwood Press were patient as this project evolved, changed
directions and took final form, and they were tolerant of several delays.
Phil Saunders, YarEbadi and John Manzer were invaluable resources from
whom we learned much, and their contributions to our understanding are
most certainly reflected in the pages of this book.
Finally, there are several persons with whom we work at Indiana-Purdue
University at Fort Wayne whose views of appropriate academic appraisal
piqued our interest and resulted in this project being undertaken. Naturally,
any errors of omission or commission are the responsibility of the authors,
even though Larry Haber drove the other two authors beyond distraction
in seeking out the most trivial style and grammatical points with which to
take issue (the Preface was written while Larry was on leave in Iowa).
Parti
Ethics and the
Performance Appraisal System