IV. Teaching and Research Activities
Time
Allocation (Q 17)
Click to
view snapshot results of (Q
17)
|
During a typical week, faculty spend more time teaching, including preparation time, than doing any other activity. They spend the second highest amount of time conducting research, while they are least likely to be involved in clinical work, fundraising, and consulting or freelance work. (See Chart 11.) |
Click on image to view larger. Close image window to return. |
)
Differences by School
Across the schools, there are substantial differences in terms of how much time is spent on teaching activities. On average, faculty spend less than one-quarter of their time teaching in Agriculture (they spend an average of 24%), Consumer and Family Sciences (21%), and the Libraries (16%), while faculty in Technology spend an average of 51% of their time teaching.
Faculty generally spend about 12% of their time advising students. This amount of time is higher than average in Engineering and lower than average in Health Sciences, Management, and Technology.
An average of 18% of faculty across the schools do not spend any time on scholarship for professional growth. This is most common in Management (39% spend no time on this activity) and least common in the Libraries (5%), Education (9%) and Technology (11%).
Technology and Libraries faculty spend the least amount of time conducting research, (8% and 14% of their time on average), while those who spend the highest proportion of their time are found in Agriculture (they spend an average of 26% of their time on research), Management (33%), and Science (27%).
In four schools, at least 5% of the faculty spend time doing clinical work. Nine percent of Liberal Arts faculty, 18% of Education faculty, 33% of Health Sciences faculty, and 59% of Veterinary Medicine faculty report being involved in this type of work.
Overall, three quarters of the faculty spend between 1 and 20% of their time on internal service to Purdue. Management has the largest number of faculty who do not spend any time serving internally (18% compared to an average of 7% across the schools), but the average amount of time that Management faculty as a whole spend serving internally matches the university average (15%). Library faculty, by far, spend the most time on internal service - an average of 39% of their time, while Education is a distant second at an average of 17% of this faculty’s time. In addition, 64% of faculty spend between 1 and 20% of their time on service external to Purdue. Agriculture and CFS faculty average the most time on this activity (13% and 17% of their time respectively).
At least 85% of respondents from Consumer and Family Sciences, Education, Health Sciences, Liberal Arts, Libraries, Management, and Technology spend no time on fundraising, while 30% or more of those from Agriculture, Engineering, and Science spend at least some time engaged in this activity.
Between 25 and 30% of faculty in most schools are involved with consulting or freelance work from 1 to 20% of their time. This proportion is notably higher in Health Sciences (39%), Veterinary Medicine (48%), and Technology (50%).
Differences by Rank
Examining responses by rank, assistant and associate professors both spend an average of 33% of their time on teaching-related activities, while full professors spend an average of 27% of their time teaching. Assistant professors spend an average of 24% of their time on research activities, compared to 19% of associate professors’ time and 22% of full professors’ time. In terms of internal service, full professors spend the highest proportion of their time on this activity (18%), followed by associate professors (15%) and then assistant professors (9%). Time allocated to external service is far more similar across the ranks – an average of 7% of professors’ and associate professors’ time and 5% of assistant professors’ time is spent on this activity. The three ranks also spend similar amounts of time on scholarship, student advising, clinical work, fundraising, and consulting.
Differences by Gender
Males spend slightly less time teaching than females (an average of 30% of their time compared to an average of 32% of females’ time) and slightly more time researching (23% of males’ time compared to 20% of females’ time). Time spent on scholarship and advising are virtually the same for males and females.
Males are more likely than females to be involved with fundraising (24% of males are involved compared to 12% of females) and consulting (35% of males and 22% of females consult). These differences are partly due to the fact that consulting and fundraising activities are generally concentrated in schools that have a low proportion of females.
Time spent on internal service also varies by gender. Controlling for rank, women are more likely to spend time serving internally than men. Specifically, 12% of male assistant professors spend no time on this activity compared to 5% of female assistant professors, 14% of male associate professors spend at least one fifth of their time compared to 24% of female associate professors, and 21% of male professors spend at least one fifth of their time serving internally compared to 36% of female professors. Controlling for rank, external service patterns are very similar between males and females.
Differences by Race
Only slight differences exist in terms of time spent teaching and advising when responses are examined by race. Underrepresented minorities are, however, more likely than Asian Americans and Caucasians to spend time on scholarship (95% spend at least some time on it compared to 75% of Asian Americans and 82% of Caucasians), and less likely to spend time on external service (41% spend no time on it compared to 28% of Asian Americans and 30% of Caucasians) and fund raising (86% spend no time on it compared to 78% of Asian Americans and 79% of Caucasians). Caucasians are the most likely to consult (33% do so vs. 18% of underrepresented minorities and 13% of Asian Americans).
Asian Americans spend an average of 27% of their time on research activities, compared to an average of 22% for both underrepresented minorities and Caucasians. Underrepresented minorities, for their part, are somewhat more involved in internal service than are their peers (they spend an average of 16% of their time on this activity compared to Asian Americans who spend an average of 12% and Caucasians who spend an average of 15% of their time on internal service). This is in spite of the fact that again half of the underrepresented minority faculty are assistant professors, the group that typically spends much less time than their tenured colleagues on internal service.
