Directors’ perceptions of faculty hiring practices at the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology
Abstract
The employees who helped build the culture of success at the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology could soon retire and exit the system along with their experience and knowledge. The problem investigated by this study focused on examining current faculty hiring practices within the TCAT system to discern which practices were used for recruiting, interviewing/screening, and selecting faculty. The purpose of this study was to determine: (1) the hiring practices used by the TCAT Directors to recruit, screen/interview, and select faculty members, (2) the degree to which there was congruency among TCAT Directors relative to the application and perceived effectiveness of the hiring process at TCAT institutions, (3) the relationships between the application of practices and their perceived effectiveness, and (4) the relationships between the application and effectiveness of current hiring practices with respect to select institutional demographic variables. The research study involved surveying TCAT Directors with an online questionnaire and in-depth interviewing six selected directors. For this research study, Spearman’s Rank-Order Correlation coefficient was used to determine the relationship between the TCAT Directors’ use of a hiring practice and the TCAT Directors’ perception of its effectiveness. The Kruskal-Wallis H Test with a post hoc Mann-Whitney U using Bonferroni adjusted significance levels was used to determine the relationship between the TCAT Directors’ use and perceived effectiveness of a hiring practice and select institutional demographic variables. In-depth interviews were conducted with six TCAT Directors whose years of service, professional experience as director, and experience with TCAT hiring uniquely qualified each to provide feedback for creating a TCAT faculty hiring model. The interview outcomes resulted in four main categories: faculty selection, the challenges of recruitment, implementing innovative hiring practices, and training new faculty. The collective findings from the questionnaire and interviews culminated in the development of a TCAT faculty hiring model.
Subject Area
Higher Education Administration|Educational leadership
Recommended Citation
Carryl S Weaver,
"Directors’ perceptions of faculty hiring practices at the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology"
(2016).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI10125723.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI10125723