Understanding Faculty, Academic Careers, and Environments in Service of Equity

该项目解决了一个根本性的重要问题，即美国的教师是谁，以及他们如何推进STEM领域的知识并为未来的劳动力做好准备。教师是高等教育成功的核心，通过教学、研究和服务，教师为STEM领域未来劳动力的教育、知识的进步和高等教育事业的成功做出了贡献。自2004年国家高等教育学院研究（NSOPF）最后一次收集数据以来，就没有全国性代表性的教师数据来源。两项重大发展也有意义地改变了学术就业的格局，特别是在STEM领域。首先，学术劳动力越来越缺乏，包括非终身教职教师（NTTF）数量的大幅增加。其次，在努力增加STEM中历史上代表性不足的群体（种族/民族、残疾、性别和社会经济弱势群体）的教师数量方面，已经投入了大量资金。因此，NSOPF的终止导致了对美国高等教育教师知识的重大差距。缺乏关于教师身份、职业、工作条件和成果的良好信息，阻碍了管理人员和政策制定者支持教师的成功。因此，该项目的目的是开发和测试教师、学术职业和环境（FACE）调查，这是NSOPF的更新和扩展版本，可以提供对美国高等教育教师的当代理解，包括他们是谁，他们的工作条件如何塑造他们成为有效科学家和教育者的机会。本研究的目标是为FACE设计研究方法和基础设施，并进行实地测试，以评估项目过程和产品的质量和有效性，以促进大规模的成功。获得具有全国代表性的教师数据需要一个复杂的、两阶段的样本。在机构层面，研究人员的目标是(1)创建并验证分层抽样框架；(2)与来自不同机构背景的机构数据提供者进行焦点小组讨论，以告知数据收集工具和格式；(3)确定收集教师机构数据的方法和流程；(4)开发机构数据存储库和问卷，以收集准确的教师数据。(5)从大约10%的合格机构样本中收集和分析试点数据。在教师层面，研究人员的目标是(1)创建并验证一个教师层面的样本框架，(2)确定收集教师层面数据的方法和过程，以促进高回复率，(3)确定有效和可靠的项目和结构，以帮助我们了解学术生涯和环境，(4)开发教师调查工具，(5)收集和分析来自至少1500名教师受访者的非概率样本的试点数据。此外，本研究采用了一种创新的现场测试方法，将机构层面和学院层面的数据收集分离开来，使研究人员能够同时收集两个层面的试点数据。本项目由美国国家科学基金会EHR核心研究（ECR）项目支持。ECR项目强调在该领域产生基础知识的基础STEM教育研究。投资在至关重要、广泛和持久的关键领域：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大STEM参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。该项目支持积累有力的证据，为理解、建立理论解释、提出干预和创新建议提供依据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project addresses the fundamentally important question of who the faculty in the United States are, and how they advance knowledge and prepare the future workforce in STEM. Faculty are central to the success of higher education, and through teaching, research, and service, faculty contribute to the education of the future workforce in STEM, the advancement of knowledge, and the success of the higher education enterprise. Since 2004, when data was last collected for the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), there has been no source of nationally representative data on faculty. Two major developments have also meaningfully changed the landscape for academic employment, particularly in STEM. First, the academic labor force is increasingly contingent, including a substantial increase in the number of non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF). Second, there have been substantial investments into efforts to increase the number of faculty from groups historically underrepresented in STEM (race/ethnicity, disability, gender, and socio-economically disadvantaged). Thus, the discontinuation of NSOPF has resulted in a significant gap in knowledge about postsecondary faculty in the United States. The lack of good information on faculty members’ identities, careers, working conditions, and outcomes handicaps administrators and policymakers in supporting faculty success. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to develop and test the Faculty, Academic Careers, and Environments (FACE) survey, an updated and expanded version of NSOPF that can provide a contemporary understanding of postsecondary faculty in the United States, including who they are and how their working conditions shape their opportunity to be effective scientists and educators.The goal of this research is to design the research methods and infrastructure for FACE and to conduct a field test to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of project processes and products to facilitate success at scale. Achieving nationally representative data on faculty requires a complex, two-stage sample. At the institution level, researchers aim to (1) create and validate a stratified sampling frame, (2) conduct focus groups with institutional data providers from different institutional contexts to inform data collection instruments and formats, (3) determine methods and processes for collecting institutional data on faculty, (4) develop the institutional data repository and questionnaire to collect accurate data about faculty, and (5) collect and analyze pilot data from a sample of roughly 10% of eligible institutions. At the faculty level, researchers aim to (1) create and validate a faculty-level sample frame, (2) determine methods and processes for collecting faculty-level data to facilitate high response rates, (3) identify valid and reliable items and constructs that inform our understanding of academic careers and environments, (4) develop a faculty survey instrument, and (5) collect and analyze pilot data from a nonprobability sample of at least 1,500 faculty respondents. Additionally, this study uses an innovative approach to field testing, decoupling institution-level and faculty-level data collection to allow researchers to collect pilot data at both levels simultaneously.This project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.