Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Davis, Ed James

Committee Member

Ayers, W. Bruce

Committee Member

Stonecypher, Wayne

Committee Member

Wiseman, M. William

Date of Degree

8-11-2007

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Community College Leadership

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Instructional Systems, Leadership and Workforce Development

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a statistically significant difference in quality of instruction as delivered by full-time and part-time adjunct faculty in community colleges by utilizing data obtained from the Kentucky Community and Technical College (KCTCS) student evaluation of instruction instrument at Southeast Kentucky and Hazard community and technical colleges. The evaluation instrument is used to rate the instructor in the following areas: (a) clarity of course goals; (b) clarity of attendance policy; (c) examinations being a fair measure of progress; (d) clear standards of grading; (e) presentation of course material; (f) clear and to the point explanations of concepts; (g) instructor?s enthusiasm towards subject material; (h) instructor?s concern for student progress in the course; (i) instructor availability before and after class; (j) the instructor?s teaching methods promote interest in the subject area; (k) how much the course has taught the student about the subject; (l) syllabus detailing course requirements and policies was provided and explained; (m) class starts on time and as scheduled; (n) instructor meets the class for the full-time scheduled. SPSS version 14.0 was used in this project. Cross tabulations were performed for each question in the evaluation. Group statistics were computed for the data providing the means, standard deviation, and standard error of the mean for each question. Independent sample tests were also performed, including Levene?s test for equality of variances and T tests for equality of means. The findings of the study indicate that there was no statistically significant difference in student satisfaction in classes taught by adjunct (part-time) instructors and full-time instructors. Discussion of the findings and theoretical and policy implications were offered.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/15412

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