University of Saskatchewan Faculty Survey
on Attitudes towards Teaching and Learning
2009
Final Report
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
Institutional Planning and Assessment
Table of Contents
Executive Summary: ......................................................................................................................................5
Introduction: ...................................................................................................................................................8
Methodology: .................................................................................................................................................8
Detailed Findings: ........................................................................................................................................10
Section I – Opinions about Teaching: ..........................................................................................................10
Table 1 – Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher: ........................................................................ 10
Table 2 – Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher by Position: ..................................................... 11
Table 3 – Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher by College: ...................................................... 12
Table 4 – Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher by Gender: ...................................................... 13
Table 5 – General Attitudes towards Teaching: ................................................................................................. 14
Table 6 – General Attitudes towards Teaching by Position: ............................................................................... 15
Table 7 – General Attitudes towards Teaching by College: ................................................................................ 16
Table 8 – General Attitudes towards Teaching in comparison with the University of British Columbia: .......... 18
Table 9 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching: ............................................................................................................... 19
Table 10 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching by Position: .......................................................................................... 20
Table 11 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching by College: ........................................................................................... 21
Table 12 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching in Comparison with the University of British Columbia: ..................... 22
Table 13 – Personal Approaches to Teaching: .................................................................................................... 23
Table 14 – Personal Approaches to Teaching by Position: ................................................................................. 24
Table 15 – Personal Approaches to Teaching by College: .................................................................................. 24
Table 16 – Personal Approaches to Teaching in Comparison with the University of British Columbia: ............ 25
Table 17 – Responsibility for Ensuring Student’s Interest: ................................................................................. 25
Table 18 – Responsibility for Ensuring Student’s Interest by Position: .............................................................. 26
Table 19 – Responsibility for Ensuring Student’s Interest by College: ............................................................... 26
Table 20 – Responsibility for Ensuring Student’s Interest in Comparison with UBC: ......................................... 27
Table 21 – Examinations as a Form of Assessment of Student’s Learning: ........................................................ 28
Table 22 – Examinations as a Form of Assessment of Student’s Learning by Position: ..................................... 29
Table 23 – Examinations as a Form of Assessment of Student’s Learning by College: ...................................... 30
Table 24 – Examinations as a Form of Assessment of Student’s Learning in Comparison with UBC: ................ 31
Section I – Analysis of Gender and Years of Teaching Experience: .................................................................... 32
2
Section II – General Assessment of Teaching at the U of S: .......................................................................34
Table 25 – Quality of Education at the University of Saskatchewan: ................................................................. 34
Table 26 – Overall Quality of Education at the University of Saskatchewan by Position: .................................. 35
Table 27 – Overall Quality of Education at the University of Saskatchewan by College: ................................... 35
Table 28 – Personal Rating of Teachers: ............................................................................................................. 36
Table 29 – Personal Rating of Teachers by Position: .......................................................................................... 36
Table 30 – Personal Rating of Teacher by College: ............................................................................................. 37
Table 31 – Quality of Education and Personal Evaluation of Teaching Quality in Comparison with UBC: ......... 37
Table 32 – Perceptions of Teaching Environment at U of S: .............................................................................. 38
Table 33 – Perceptions of Teaching Environment by Position: .......................................................................... 39
Table 34 – Perceptions of Teaching Environment by College: ........................................................................... 40
Table 35 – Perceptions of Teaching Environment in Comparison with UBC: ..................................................... 41
Table 36 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research:...................................................... 42
Table 37 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research by Position: ................................... 43
Table 38 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research by College Type: ........................... 44
Table 39 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research within Departments in Comparison
with UBC: ............................................................................................................................................................ 45
Table 40 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research within College in Comparison with
UBC: .................................................................................................................................................................... 45
Table 41 –Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research within Individuals in Comparison
with UBC: ............................................................................................................................................................ 46
Table 42 – Assessment of Support of Teaching Excellence: ............................................................................... 47
Table 43 – Assessment of Support of Teaching Effectiveness by Position: ........................................................ 48
Table 44 – Assessment of Support of Teaching Effectiveness by College: ......................................................... 49
Table 45 – Assessment of Support of Teaching Effectiveness in Comparison with UBC:................................... 50
Section II – Analysis of Gender and Years of Teaching Experience: ................................................................... 51
Section III – Efforts and Initiatives for Teaching Excellence: .....................................................................52
Table 46 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching Excellence: ..................................... 52
Table 47 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching Excellence by Position: .................. 53
Table 48 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching Excellence by College: ................... 54
Table 49 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching Excellence in Comparison with UBC:
............................................................................................................................................................................ 55
3
Table 50 – Familiarity with Initiatives and Efforts in Teaching Excellence: ........................................................ 56
Table 51 – Familiarity with Initiatives and Efforts in Teaching Excellence by Position: ..................................... 56
Table 52 – Familiarity with Initiatives and Efforts in Teaching Excellence by College: ...................................... 57
Table 53 – Familiarity with Initiatives and Efforts in Teaching Excellence in Comparison with UBC: ................ 57
Table 54 – Aided Awareness of Efforts and Initiatives: ...................................................................................... 58
Table 55 – Aided Awareness of Efforts and Initiatives by Position: ................................................................... 59
Table 56 – Aided Awareness of Efforts and Initiatives by College: ..................................................................... 60
Table 57 – Success of Efforts and Initiatives: ...................................................................................................... 61
Table 58 – Success of Efforts and Initiatives by Position: ................................................................................... 62
Table 59 – Success of Efforts and Initiatives by College: .................................................................................... 63
Section III – Analysis of Gender and Years of Teaching Experience: .................................................................. 64
Conclusion: ..................................................................................................................................................65
4
Executive Summary
Testing the Temperature of Faculty Attitudes Toward Teaching
In fall 2009, the University of Saskatchewan administered an institution-wide survey aimed at gaining a
better understanding of faculty members’ and other instructors’ general attitudes toward teaching and
learning. Originally developed at the University of British Columbia, the “Faculty Attitudes” survey was
administered to all of the 1290 faculty, sessional lecturers, and graduate students who had taught at
least one U of S course in the 2009 calendar year. A total of 458 instructors responded, resulting in a
36% response rate (with good representation from all colleges and all faculty ranks).
U of S instructors tended to hold teaching in high regard, but also felt discouraged by the lack of training,
incentives, commitment and rewards given for this activity. Most were found to lack a strong awareness
of the current and ongoing efforts, initiatives and supports for teaching excellence at the University of
Saskatchewan. In comparing results against the University of British Columbia, it was found that
respondents from both Universities held similar views regarding their personal commitment to teaching,
both felt a perceived lack of support for teaching given by their University, and had some level of
unfamiliarity with ongoing efforts and initiatives to promote teaching and learning.
Amongst the responding faculty and other instructors at the U of S, 97% rated themselves as effective or
very effective educators. Further, the vast majority of respondents agreed that it is important, as
instructors, to provide students with useful feedback and to engage students in the subject matter.
Almost all felt that successful teaching means that students retain the concepts of the class for the long
term. To teach effectively, respondents agreed that they must be cognizant of how students learn a
subject. A majority of respondents felt that traditional lecturing is not a very effective teaching method
and generally favored the use of problem-based and interactive learning. On the other hand, instructors
were found to be more conflicted on the notion of exams, with the majority of respondents feeling that
there should be no decrease in emphasis on exams within undergraduate teaching. Despite this, the
majority also admitted that exams do not really encourage a true understanding or learning of the
subject matter and that more effective methods of student assessment could be developed.
Generally, respondents agreed that increasing resources such as expanding the availability of classroom
media/computer technologies and smaller class sizes would improve the effectiveness of their teaching.
However, they also indicated that they could become more effective even without more resources if
they could devote more time to their teaching. Moreover, instructors agreed that the existing classroom
technologies and the access to support of these technologies at the U of S are generally adequate for
their pedagogical purposes.
5
Only 37% of respondents believed they had been adequately trained to be effective teachers, with full
professors and graduate students reporting even lower percentages. Further, a majority of respondents
continued to feel that they are not being provided with enough training and education on effective
teaching methods and tools at the University of Saskatchewan, yet indicated that finding time to avail
themselves of such training would be very difficult.
A large majority of respondents perceived that both their departments and their colleges place more
emphasis on research than on teaching. In contrast, only 24% of respondents placed more personal
emphasis on research than teaching, with a nearly 40% placing more personal emphasis on teaching
than research. Among the assistant and associate professors, much more personal emphasis was placed
on research than teaching. This tended to shift a bit with full professors, where more than half of the
full professors claimed to place equal or greater emphasis on teaching.
Despite their personal commitment to teaching, most respondents felt that they were not being
provided with adequate incentives and rewards to be a good teacher nor were they provided with
adequate rewards or incentives to promote teaching excellence. Thus, when asked if instructors still felt
that they could devote time to becoming a more effective teacher, given all the demands and
constraints placed upon them in their role at the U of S, around half of the respondents stated that they
could not find the time.
Still many respondents agreed that they were willing to invest some time into continuing to improve
their teaching and most agreed that any initiatives or training opportunities aimed at improving teaching
excellence at the University of Saskatchewan were highly important. However, when asked if instructors
were familiar with current efforts and initiatives in promoting teaching excellence at the University, 47%
of respondents stated that they were unfamiliar with such efforts and initiatives. Further, close to onethird of the respondents did not know if current efforts to improve teaching excellence at the U of S
were having any measure of success. Among those respondents who had attended training sessions on
effective teaching at the U of S, 45% did agree that it was a valuable use of their time; however, many
claimed that the efforts and initiatives failed to help them find teaching more fulfilling.
Instructors with fewer than ten years of teaching experience were more likely to favour interactive
learning and generally viewed learning as a social activity. Female respondents valued more highly the
interactive classroom experience, smaller class sizes, and engaging in training to be an effective teacher.
On the other hand, male respondents placed a greater importance on teaching experience, conveying
enthusiasm for the subject, and preparation for lectures. The combined effect of gender and teaching
experience showed a dramatic gap in preferred approaches between women earlier in their teaching
careers and men later in their careers. Traditional lectures and traditional examinations are seen as
quite negative by earlier career female faculty but were thought to be a relatively effective means of
teaching by later career males.
6
When comparing the results between the University of Saskatchewan and UBC, it was found that there
were far more similarities between the opinions of respondents across both Universities than
differences. While respondents from both Universities felt that they generally lacked training to be a
good and effective teacher, only 19% of the respondents from UBC believed that they were trained to be
a good and effective teacher in comparison to 37% of the respondents from the U of S.
7
Introduction:
In 2009, the University of Saskatchewan administered an institutional-wide survey aimed at gaining a
better understanding of faculty members’ and other instructors’ views on teaching and learning.
Originally developed and fielded at the University of British Columbia in partnership with Angus Reid
Strategies in 2008; this survey was adopted by the University of Saskatchewan, driven by the University’s
commitment to improve the ‘in-classroom’ experience for teachers and learners (as stated in the
Teaching and Learning Foundational Document of 20081). Specifically, this Foundational Document has
been the cornerstone for spearheading a University-wide discussion on the motivations, guiding
principles, issues, and initiatives which should be undertaken to support the University’s teaching and
learning mission, while also moving the discussion beyond student numbers and composition to provide
a comprehensive overview of the critical and complex factors affecting the University’s teaching and
learning environment.
As an important step towards furthering this discussion, the Faculty Survey on Teaching and Learning
was administered with specific focus:




To gain understanding of the views of U of S faculty and Sessional lecturers about the
undergraduate teaching and learning environment.
To find better ways to improve teaching and learning at the U of S while maintaining focus on
research excellence.
To define new strategies and approaches as well as programs to support teaching efforts and
activities.
To establish a baseline on attitudes to study future changes.
In turn, this report offers a detailed summary of the important findings uncovered from the survey.
Moreover, it aims to draw comparisons with the results obtained by UBC from their comparable survey.
Methodology:
Upon receipt of clearance from the U of S Research Ethics Board, all U of S instructors (faculty,
sessionals, graduate students) who had taught a course during the 2009 calendar year were invited to
participate. Utilizing information from the Banner system and a University-wide faculty directory, a
letter of invitation was sent electronically to 1290 instructors inviting them to complete the survey,
which was administered online from October 6th to October 20th, 2009. A total of 458 instructors
responded, resulting in a 36% response rate with 59% of the respondents being male and 41% of the
respondents female. This is consistent with the 36% response rate UBC received in 2008.
1
University of Saskatchewan, Teaching and Learning Foundational Document:
http://www.usask.ca/ip/inst_planning/docs/TLFD_Council_Approved_Version_December_2008.pdf (December, 2008)
8
For the purpose of analysis, the data were further categorized by position:






Professors
Associate Professors
Assistant Professors
Lecturers/Instructors
Sessional Lecturers
Graduate Students
And by college type:






Arts and Science: Humanities & Fine Arts,
Arts and Science: Science,
Arts and Science: Social Sciences
Agriculture & Bioresources/Engineering2
Business/Education/Law3
Health (Dentistry, Kinesiology, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Nutrition, and
Veterinary Medicine)
Specific completion rates by position and college are as follows:
Responses by Position:
Professor
Associate Professor
Assistant Professor
Lecturer/Instructor
Sessional
Graduate Student
94
85
96
13
142
28
Responses by Academic Unit:
Arts and Science: Humanities and Fine Arts
Arts and Science: Sciences
Arts and Science: Social Sciences
Agriculture & Bioresources/Engineering
Business/Education/Law
Health
72
73
83
62
90
78
2
Agriculture & Bioresources and Engineering were combined into one category on the basis of their similarity as
professionally-oriented Colleges with an applied science focus.
3
Business, Education and Law were combined into one category on the basis that they are professionally-oriented Colleges
with more social science focus.
9
Detailed Findings:
Section I – Opinions about Teaching:
Respondents were given a series of paired statements, each relating to an aspect of undergraduate
teaching. Each combination of pairings was chosen at random and respondents were asked to select the
statement within the pairing that, in their opinion, has a greater influence on being an effective teacher
to undergraduate students. In turn, the responses were tabulated and the statements were ranked
based upon the amount of times they were selected by respondents. The specific statements and their
relative rankings are displayed in Table 1.4
Table 1 – Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher:
All Respondents
Providing relevant real-life examples of concepts
1274
Conveying enthusiasm for the subject
1078
Promoting interest in the subject matter
1028
Preparation for lectures
937
Understanding how students learn
886
Interactive classroom experience
746
Understanding what motivates students to learn material
737
Understanding students needs
621
Teaching experience
612
Training on how to be an effective teacher
598
The size of class
573
One-on-one time with students outside class
388
Group student-teacher interaction outside of class
293
Understanding current generation
256
Integration of technology into teaching
161
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
According to the Table 1, respondents were mostly likely to agree that providing relevant real-life
examples of concepts in teaching has the greatest influence on being an effective teacher to
undergraduate students. This was followed by conveying enthusiasm for the subject, promoting interest
in the subject matter, preparation of lectures and understanding how students learn. On the other hand,
respondents were least likely to agree that the integration of technology into teaching has a great
influence on being an effective teacher. Other statements that were ranked lower by respondents were
4
As this question was developed and administered at the University of Saskatchewan, there is no comparative analysis with
UBC in regards to this question.
10
understanding of the current generation, group student-teacher interaction outside of class/lectures
and one-on-one time with students outside of class time.
Table 2 – Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher by Position:
Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher by Position
Providing relevant real-life examples of concepts
12.1%
Conveying enthusiasm for subject
11.6%
Promoting interest in subject matter
Preparation for lectures
Understanding how students learn
12.1%
12.0%
11.9%
9.6%
9.5%
10.9%
10.3%
10.2%
10.4%
8.5%
9.2%
8.9%
7.0%
7.6%
7.8%
Understanding what motivates students to learn material
7.6%
6.2%
8.2%
7.1%
Understanding students needs
6.6%
Teaching experience
Training on how to be an effective teacher
7.7%
5.6% 5.3% 5.5%
4.3% 5.2%
6.6%
6.6%
13.3%
12.3%
9.7%
8.5%
8.0%
7.2%
7.0%
9.8%
10.0%
9.3%
Interactive classroom experience
4.4% 5.8%
12.9%
14.1%
9.6%
9.7%
6.5%
9.7%
10.1%
7.7%
3.2% 7.3%
6.8%
4.2%
7.3%
7.0%
7.1%
6.2%
9.1%
5.6%
Professor
Associate Professor
The size of class
4.7%
6.6%
5.7%
5.8%
6.2% 4.3%
Assistant Professor
One-on-one time with students outside class
Sessionals
Group student-teacher interaction outside of class
Lecturers
Understanding current generation
Graduate Students
Integration of technology into teaching
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
When separated by their respective positions, differences in opinion could be found between the
respondents. First, Professors were most likely to emphasize the importance of teaching experience in
comparison to the other respondents. For Associate Professors, they were found to rank the importance
of the size of the class higher than the other respondents; however, they were less likely to stress the
importance of understanding student need. Assistant Professors were found to be most likely to
emphasize the importance of understanding what motivates students to learn the material. In addition,
Assistant Professors and Lecturer/Instructors both placed increased emphasis on the importance of
training on how to be an effective teacher. Sessionals were slightly more likely to emphasize the
importance of promoting interest in a subject matter and training on how to be an effective teacher
while graduate students ranked both the importance of promoting interest in the subject matter and
preparation for lectures slightly higher than conveying enthusiasm for the subject.
11
Table 3 – Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher by College:
Importance of factors to being an effective teacher by College
Providing relevant real-life examples of concepts
9.9%
11.1%
Conveying enthusiasm for subject
12.0%
Promoting interest in subject matter
12.0%
Preparation for lectures
9.2%
Understanding how students learn
8.3%
Interactive classroom experience
6.8%
Understanding what motivates students to learn…
6.0%
Understanding students needs
6.5%
Teaching experience
Training on how to be an effective teacher
6.6%
11.1%
10.2%
10.7%
5.0%
6.9%
5.6% 4.5%
8.4%
6.0%
8.3%
5.6%
6.3%
4.6%
7.3%
6.4%
6.9%
10.7%
8.3%
8.1%
13.9%
10.4%
11.1%
8.0%
7.5%
9.1%
8.0%
7.1%
4.9%
7.1%
13.3%
8.1%
10.0%
10.7%
6.9%
6.5%
5.1%
6.2%
5.0%
10.2%
5.9%
7.3%
7.7%
9.2%
10.9%
8.6%
8.1%
7.7%
12.1%
9.4%
9.5%
5.4% 4.3%
The size of class
14.2%
6.4%
5.6%
Humanities/Fine Arts
4.0%
Sciences
One-on-one time with students outside class
Social Sciences
Group student-teacher interaction outside of class
AgBio/Engineering
Understanding current generation
Bus/Ed/Law
Health Sciences
Integration of technology into teaching
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
When the aggregate results from Table 1 are analyzed by College, respondents from the Humanities &
Fine Arts were more likely to emphasize the importance of both promoting interest in the subject matter
and conveying enthusiasm for the subject in comparison with the other Colleges. For these respondents,
they also ranked the importance of the size of the class higher than the mean. For the Sciences,
respondents were more likely to rank the importance of interactive classroom experience much lower
and teaching experience higher. In the Social Sciences, respondents placed less emphasis on the
importance of understanding student needs while the importance of training on how to be an effective
teacher was ranked higher. Furthermore, respondents from the Social Sciences ranked the importance
of promoting interest in the subject matter as the second most frequently selected statement in
contrast to the response from the faculty members from Agriculture & Bioresources/Engineering who
were more likely to emphasize the importance of understanding how students learn and preparation for
lectures than promoting interest in a subject matter. Faculty members from AgBio/Eng, and
Business/Education/Law were also more likely to stress the importance of training on how to be an
effective teacher while less likely to emphasize the importance of teaching experience. For faculty
members in Bus/Ed/Law, the importance of class sizes was rated more highly than the average response.
Finally, the Health Sciences were more likely to place more emphasis on the importance of the
interactive classroom experience and understanding student needs and understanding what motivates
students to learn material in relation to the responses from the rest of the colleges. They also ranked the
importance of promoting interest in the subject matter as the second most frequently selected
statement.
12
Table 4 – Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher by Gender:
Importance of Factors to Being an Effective Teacher by Gender
Providing relevant real-life examples of concepts
12.1%
Conveying enthusiasm for subject
11.1%
Promoting interest in subject matter
10.2%
Preparation for lectures
9.6%
Understanding how students learn
9.0%
Interactive classroom experience
6.4%
Understanding what motivates students to learn …
7.2%
13.2%
10.2%
10.1%
8.7%
8.4%
8.7%
7.4%
Understanding students needs
6.1%
6.3%
Teaching experience
6.5%
4.9%
Training on how to be an effective teacher
5.6%
The size of class
4.9%
6.0%
6.1%
One-on-one time with students outside class
Group student-teacher interaction outside of class
Male
Understanding current generation
Female
Integration of technology into teaching
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
When analyzed by gender, male respondents were found to rank the importance of the interactive
classroom experience much lower than women. On the other hand, male respondents were more likely
to place increased emphasis on the importance of teaching experience. In comparison with female
respondents, male respondents displayed increased prominence on the importance of conveying
enthusiasm for the subject, preparation for lectures and understanding how students learn. Conversely,
female respondents were more likely to stress the importance of the interactive classroom experience,
the size of the class and training on how to be an effective teacher. Furthermore, female respondents
were found to rank the importance of teaching experience much lower than their male counterparts.
Respondents were then given a series of statements in which they were asked their level of agreement
with the proposed statement, aimed at gauging their general attitudes and opinions towards
undergraduate teaching. On a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “Strongly agree” to “Neutral to
“Strongly disagree” with a sixth option being, “I don’t know”, Table 5 illustrates the subsequent results.
13
Table 5 – General Attitudes towards Teaching:
As Table 5 indicates, the vast majority of respondents (97%) agree on the importance of providing
students with useful feedback and their responsibility for engaging students in the subject matter (88%).
In terms of successful teaching, the majority of respondents (87%) agreed that they would consider their
own role as being successful if students retained the important concepts within their class long after the
duration of the class itself; however, they also agreed effective teaching involved an understanding of
how students learn a subject rather than just knowing a subject (83%). This indicates that instructors are
aware and appreciate the complex nature of teaching and learning that results from more than just
exposing students to the subject material. This is further reinforced by the fact that a slight majority of
respondents disagreed with the statement that traditional lecturing is a very effective teaching method.
Conversely, a majority of respondents favoured the use of problem-based learning (80%) and learning
through social interaction (75%). In terms of student success, a majority of instructors agreed that the
instructor is responsible more for motivating students as opposed to preparing students for their future
careers.
14
Table 6 – General Attitudes towards Teaching by Position:
In turn, Table 6 separates the aggregate responses illustrated in Table 5 by the respective ranks and
types of positions of the respondents. One trend that can be observed from this table is the significantly
lower percentage of agreement from Professors and Associate Professors in statements pertaining to
the social dimensions of learning. For example, only 77% of Associate Professors agreed with the
statement, “To teach effectively requires knowing how students learn a subject and not just knowing the
subject” as opposed to an 89% agreement level from Assistant Professors and 87% from Sessional
Lecturers, differences which were statistically significant.5 Further, 62% of Professors and 73% of
Associate Professors agreed that, “learning can be facilitated through the use of social interaction
amongst students” in comparison with 85% of Sessional Lecturers. This contrast was also found to be
significant. For the item, “learning is a social activity” Professors and Associate Professors were also
found to demonstrate a significantly lower level of agreement as compared with that of Assistant
Professors and Sessional Lecturers at the U of S. In addition, when asked if interactive teaching
techniques are very helpful in teaching effectively, both Professors and Associate Professors responded
with lower levels of agreement than the mean (82%) while Assistant Professors (90%) and Graduate
Students (93%) overwhelmingly agreed, though only the difference between Associate Professors and
Assistant Professors was found to be significant. Finally, when asked if traditional lecturing is a very
effective teaching method, Professors and Associate Professors were significantly more likely to agree
than Sessionals.
5
All levels of significant reported are at the 0.05 level of significance.
15
Two items pertaining to teaching as performance also resulted in interesting findings. First, the
statement, “the charisma or appeal of the instructor during a lecture is an important part of effectively
teaching students” shows a disparity ranging from Associate Professors who responded in a lukewarm
fashion (62%) compared to Lecturers/Instructors (92%), and Sessionals (83%), where the mean was
found to be 72%. Second, a difference in response was found between Professors and Assistant
Professors in relation to the item, “An instructor is responsible for engaging students in a subject,”
where Professors were found to more likely agree.
Table 7 – General Attitudes towards Teaching by College:
The responses from Table 5 were further analyzed by exploring the effect of working in different
Colleges at the University on faculty perceptions of teaching and learning. By isolating that variable,
interesting contrasts and comparisons were found. As illustrated in Table 7, only 72% of faculty from the
Social Sciences agreed that an instructor’s success can be gauged by the student’s retention of
important concepts taught in class, which was significantly different than the faculty in Health Sciences
where 95% agreed. And when asked if learning is a social activity, the majority of the faculty from the
Sciences displayed significantly lower levels of agreement in comparison to the faculty from the Social
Sciences, Humanities and Business/Education/Law. In addition, when asked if it is important for
instructors to explicitly address any preconceptions of students in their teaching, instructors in the
Humanities & Fine Arts, and the Social Sciences were more likely to agree (61% and 65% respectively)
than instructors in Agriculture & Bioresources/Engineering and the Sciences (42% and 43% respectively),
though only the difference between Social Science and AgBio/Eng was found to be significant.
Differences were also seen in approaches to teaching. For example, interactive learning techniques were
held in positive regard from instructors in Health (90%) and Business/Education/Law (88%) in contrast to
the Humanities (74%) and the Sciences (73%), though only the differences between Health and the
Humanities and the Sciences were found to be significant. In response to perceptions of problem-based
learning, only 67% of the faculty in the Humanities & Fine Arts agreed that it is an effective way to teach
16
students, which was significantly different from the faculty in AgBio/Eng (89%). Interestingly, faculty in
the Health Sciences, the disciplines in which problem-based learning originated, were slightly below the
mean in their perceptions of its effectiveness. In regards to the effectiveness of traditional lecturing,
instructors in Business/Education/Law were much less likely to agree (31%) in comparison to the
respondents from the other respective colleges, a difference that was significant across the board.
For items relating to student success, differences were found between the respondents from the
Humanities who were less likely to agree on the statement that an instructor is responsible for engaging
students in a subject. On the other hand, faculty members from Health Sciences and AgBio/Eng were
significantly more likely to agree. When asked if students were primarily responsible for their academic
success, the respondents from the Social Sciences were the least likely to agree in contrast to the
Sciences and Humanities, both of which demonstrated significantly higher levels of agreement. One final
interesting result of note was the level of variance found for the item, “an instructor is responsible for
preparing students for their future career.” Specifically, significant differences were found between the
Sciences and Humanities, both of which demonstrated a low level of agreement, in comparison with
high levels of agreement from AgBio/Eng and Business/Education/Law. Moreover, a significant
difference was also found between the low level of agreement within the Humanities and respondents
from the Health Sciences.
17
Table 8 – General Attitudes towards Teaching in comparison with the University of British Columbia:
Utilizing the results from both UBC and the U of S surveys, we can see that there are some differences
between the responding faculties. In response to the statement, “To teach effectively requires knowing
how students learn a subject and not just knowing the subject”, 91% of the responding faculty from UBC
agreed with this statement while 83% of the responding faculty from U of S agreed. UBC was also found
to more likely agree on three other statements: “Learning can be facilitated through the use of social
interaction among students”, “An instructor is responsible for motivating their students” and “It is
important for instructors to explicitly address any preconceptions of students in their teaching”. On the
other hand, the responding faculty from the U of S was found to be more likely to agree with the
statement that “interactive learning techniques are very helpful in teaching effectively” than the faculty
respondents at UBC.
18
Table 9 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching:
Respondents were asked their level of agreement with statements pertaining to their personal beliefs
with respect to undergraduate teaching. Opinions were captured using a five-point Likert scale, ranging
from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree” with a sixth option being, “I don’t know”. The following
results are displayed on Table 9.
Upon dissection of Table 9, three overarching themes can be identified: successful teaching, resources
and training. First, successful teaching, as defined by a majority of instructors, can be equated with
student success (82%). In regards to resources, a majority of instructors agreed that expanding the
availability of classroom media and computer technologies would be important in their teaching (56%),
and smaller class sizes would improve the effectiveness of their teaching (57%). On the other hand,
instructors also believed that even without improving class sizes or more resources, they can still be
effective in their teaching; hinting that they can be adaptable to different teaching contexts. Finally, in
terms of training, a majority of instructors readily agreed (65%) that to improve their teaching would
require them to spend time on it. Conversely, only 37% of instructors believed that they were
adequately trained to be an effective teacher.
19
Table 10 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching by Position:
When separated by position, amongst the responses to the item if they believed that they would still be
effective in their teaching even without smaller class sizes, Sessionals (66%) were least likely to agree
while Lecturer/Instructors (85%) and Graduate Students (82%) were much more likely to agree. On the
other hand, when asked if smaller class sizes would substantially improve the effectiveness of their
teaching, Sessionals surprisingly did not agree (only 46% agreed) more than the mean (57%), which
would’ve been expected based on their response from the previous question. Assistant Professors also
demonstrated high levels of agreement (70%) that smaller class sizes would be beneficial to their
teaching.
In regards to the statement, “Improving the effectiveness of my teaching would require that I spend
more time on it”, Associate Professors (73%) and Graduate Students (75%) were more likely to agree
while Lecturer/Instructors and Sessionals (55%) scored lower than the mean (65%). Perhaps the most
interesting result illustrated in Table 10 pertains to agreement on being adequately trained to be a good
and effective teacher. Specifically, one can see that Professors were least likely to agree that they were
adequately trained (27%), with Graduate Students not far behind (29%). Conversely, Assistant Professors
and Sessionals were more likely to demonstrate significantly higher levels of agreement.
20
Table 11 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching by College:
When looking at the contrast in the responses to personal beliefs in teaching within the different
colleges, the statement in regards to student success as a reflection of an instructors’ own sense of
success reveals a spectrum of opinions. Specifically, instructors from the Humanities & Fine Arts (72%),
and Social Sciences (76%) were less likely to agree than instructors from AgBio/Eng (86%) and Health
Sciences (85%), with significant differences between the Humanities, and AgBio/Eng and Health
Sciences. For Social Sciences, only the difference to AgBio/Eng was found to be significant. In terms of
class sizes, the Sciences (44%) were much less likely to agree that smaller class sizes would substantially
improve faculty effectiveness in teaching whereas faculty in AgBio/Eng were found to have the highest
level of agreement with this statement (65%). In addition, faculty in the Health Sciences (67%) were
more likely, to a statistically significant degree, to agree that the availability and use of classroom media
and computer technologies is important in comparison with the Sciences (48%).
Finally, the last statement, “I was adequately trained to be a good and effective teacher”, showed that
faculty in the Sciences (29%), the Social Sciences (31%), and Health Sciences (33%) had lower levels of
agreement than faculty in AgBio/Eng (44%) and Business/Education/Law (46%).
21
Table 12 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching in Comparison with the University of British Columbia:
When comparing the findings at the U of S to the UBC results, the U of S instructors were found to be
more likely to equate student success with their own success than UBC. They also scored much higher
than UBC for items in regards to adapting to conditions such as: a lack of resources (78% for U of S
faculty compared to 63% UBC) and without smaller class sizes (71% U of S compared to 58% UBC). UBC,
on the other hand, was found to be more likely to agree with the statement that smaller class sizes
would improve the effectiveness of teaching. Moreover, UBC faculty were more likely to agree that
spending more time on their teaching would improve its effectiveness. Lastly, when asked if faculty
agree that they were adequately trained to be a good and effective teacher, 37% of U of S faculty agreed
while only 19% of UBC’s faculty agreed with this statement, a considerable difference.
22
Table 13 – Personal Approaches to Teaching:
Table 13 highlights the results from a series of statements asking faculty about their personal
approaches to teaching. Opinions were gauged on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “Strongly
agree” to “Strongly disagree” with a sixth option being “I don’t know”. According to Table 13, U of S
instructors overwhelmingly agree that they regularly involve students in the learning process (92%) and
they encourage interaction/interactive learning during their class time (90%). This is consistent with the
results illustrated in Table 5 (General Attitudes towards Teaching, page 15) where instructors agreed
with the importance of interactive learning, and by their agreement that it was the instructors’
responsibility to engage and motivate students in the subject matter.
Concurrently, U of S instructors agreed that they mould their teaching techniques to match the needs of
their students. On the other hand, the response by U of S instructors towards regularly interacting with
students outside of class time was met with a much more lukewarm response. While 72% is still a high
percentage, this is considerably lower than the responses for the other items in this section.
23
Table 14 – Personal Approaches to Teaching by Position:
When taking into account faculty positions, the item, “I regularly involve students in the learning
process” produced similar findings to that of Table 5 (General Attitudes towards Teaching) with
Professors being significantly different than Assistant Professors, while Associate Professors were
significantly difference from both Assistant Professors and Sessional Lecturers. Graduate Students were
found to be the least likely to interact with students outside of the class/lecture though they
overwhelmingly agreed that they encourage interaction/interactive learning during their class time. On
the other hand, each and every lecturer/instructor respondent agreed that they regularly involved
students in the learning process, and they also reported the highest level of agreement when asked if
they regularly interacted with students outside the class/lecture.
Table 15 – Personal Approaches to Teaching by College:
For Colleges, in response to the statement, “I encourage interaction/interactive learning during my class
time,” it was found that faculty members from Business/Education/Law responded with a statistically
higher level of agreement than the Sciences, Social Sciences and AgBio/Eng. Furthermore, faculty from
the Humanities were also significantly more favorably to this statement in contrast to the Sciences. This
trend was also evident for the item, “I regularly involve students in the learning process,” where
Business/Education/Law continued to display a statistically higher level of agreement than the Sciences
and the Social Sciences. When asked if they regularly review and change their teaching techniques in
accordance with student needs, faculty members from Business/Education/Law were once again
significantly more likely to agree than faculty from the Sciences.
24
Table 16 – Personal Approaches to Teaching in Comparison with the University of British Columbia:
As Table 16 illustrates, the responses for personal approaches to teaching are very similar amongst the faculty at
the University of Saskatchewan and the faculty at University of British Columbia. While differences can be seen,
they are much smaller than trends seen in previous comparisons.
Table 17 – Responsibility for Ensuring Student’s Interest:
Respondents were asked about the responsibility for ensuring undergraduate student interest in the
course material, gauging their opinions on whether they felt that the responsibility lies with the student,
the teacher or a combination of both. On a five-point scale, faculty rated student responsibility, with one
25
being, “Not at all responsible” to five being, “Completely responsible” with a sixth option being, “Don’t
know”. The same scale was utilized to rate the teacher’s responsibility as well.
Based on the results from Table 17, instructors believe that both the teacher and student are
responsible for ensuring interest in course material. In fact, the results were nearly identical with 71% of
instructors feeling that the student is mostly/completely responsible for being interested in the course
material and 70% for the teacher being responsible for encouraging student interest in course material.
However, it is also worth noting that close to 18% of instructors agreed that encouraging student
interest was completely the responsibility of the student as opposed to 12% who responded the same
for the teacher.
Table 18 – Responsibility for Ensuring Student’s Interest by Position:
In regards to who was responsible (student or teacher) for ensuring student’s interest, most respondent
categories did not deviate too far from the means, with the exceptions that Sessionals were found to be
less likely agree that the teacher is responsible than the other categories and the opposite was true for
Associate Professors and Graduate Students (though none of the differences were significant).
Table 19 – Responsibility for Ensuring Student’s Interest by College:
For the different Colleges types, only 65% of the AgBio/Eng instructors agreed that the student is
responsible for interest in course materials, while the faculty in Health Sciences were much more likely
to agree (78%). For agreement that the responsibility lies with the teacher, the Humanities & Fine Arts
(57%) and the Sciences (64%) were less likely to agree, while the Health Sciences (81%) were more likely
to agree (significantly so in comparison with Humanities & Fine Arts).
Taking both items into consideration, the instructors in Health Sciences and Business/Education/Law
were found to have been much more likely to agree that interest in course material is the responsibility
of both the student and faculty. In the College of Arts and Science, the instructors from the Humanities
26
& Fine Arts and the Sciences were found to agree more with the student being responsible for interest in
course material, while the Social Sciences faculty tended to place more emphasis on the responsibility of
the teacher. This was even more pronounced in the responses from the instructors in AgBio/Eng.
Table 20 – Responsibility for Ensuring Student’s Interest in Comparison with UBC:
When the U of S responses were compared with UBC, there was no difference found in terms of
agreement with the students being responsible for interest in course material. However, UBC faculty
were more likely to agree (78%) that the teacher carries the responsibility for encouraging
undergraduate students’ interest, which is higher than the response from the U of S (70%).
27
Table 21 – Examinations as a Form of Assessment of Student’s Learning:
Respondents were asked their opinions and attitudes on the topic of examinations as a form of
assessment within undergraduate teaching. Instructors were asked if they agreed with a series of
statements utilizing a five-point Likert scale with one being, “Strongly agree” to five being “Strongly
disagree”. There was also a sixth option, “I don’t know” that respondents could’ve chosen.
When addressing emphasis on exams in undergraduate teaching, a majority of U of S instructors agree
that their students only pay attention to material they think will be on the exam (65%). But when asked
if instructors agreed that there is too much emphasis on exams for evaluating students, however, less
than half of the respondents (49%) agreed.
In addition to the emphasis on exams, instructors were also asked whether they felt exams were an
accurate representation of student learning. Only 47% of respondents agreed that most exams do a
good job of accurately measuring student understanding, and 50% agreed that exams need to be
thoroughly tested in order to actually measure student learning accurately. Further, 63% of instructors
agreed that exams are an effective channel for providing feedback to students on their learning. On the
other hand, a majority of respondents (57%) argued that exams do not encourage a true understanding
or learning of the subject matter and agreed (55%) that more effective methods of student assessment
can be developed by basing them on how students learn a subject.
28
Table 22 – Examinations as a Form of Assessment of Student’s Learning by Position:
In regards to emphasis on exams, an overwhelming majority of Graduate Students (86%) believed that
students only pay attention to material that will be on an exam within their class, which is much higher
than the mean (65%). When asked if there is too much emphasis on exams for evaluating students,
Professors and Associate Professors were significantly less likely to agree with the statement than
Assistant Professors and Sessional Lecturers.
Table 22 further gauged respondents on whether they agreed that exams are effective. In response,
Graduate Students continued to express their opposition to exams with only 39% agreeing that exams
accurately measure what students learn and can be a means of providing feedback to students on their
learning. All other respondents – led by the Associate Professors, on the other hand, were found to
consistently respond favourably to exploring the effectiveness of exams in providing feedback to
students. Further, 69% of Lecturers/Instructors and 52% of Associate Professors agreed that exams
accurately measure students’ understanding. Meanwhile, when asked whether exams encourage a true
understanding or learning of the subject matter, 52% of Professors and Associate Professors agreed with
the statement compared to 38% of Sessional Lecturers, which was a statistically significant difference.
Finally, in regards to the process of constructing exams, both Lecturers/Instructors (85%) and Graduate
Students (68%) were significantly more likely to agree that exams need to be thoroughly tested before
they can accurately measure student learning. In addition, when asked if more effective methods of
student assessment, other than exams, can be developed by basing them on how students learn a
subject, Sessionals were found to significantly diverge from the opinions of Professors and Associate
Professors with Sessionals being significantly more likely to agree.
29
Table 23 - Examinations as a Form of Assessment of Student’s Learning by College:
Table 23 highlights opinions on examinations based on the respective Colleges at the University of
Saskatchewan. In terms of emphasis on exams, the different Colleges illustrated quite a wide disparity of
responses. For example, when asked if they agreed that students only pay attention to material they
think will be on an exam, only 44% of the faculty from the Humanities & Fine Arts agreed in comparison
with significantly higher levels of agreement displayed by the Sciences (78%), Health Sciences (71%) and
AgBio/Eng (79%). Concurrently, when asked if there is too much emphasis on exams for evaluating
students, the agreement from faculty in the Sciences (37%) and Social Sciences (40%) were below the
mean (49%) whereas a majority of respondents from Business/Education/Law agreed with the
statement. When comparing the means between Business/Education/Law, and the Sciences and Social
Sciences, both differences were found to be statistically significant.
In terms of the effectiveness of exams, both the Social Sciences (37%) and Business/Education/Law
(31%) disagreed that exams encourage a true understanding or learning of the subject manner. When
comparing the responses from faculty in Business/Education/Law to instructors from the Humanities
(44%), Sciences (53%), AgBio/Eng (50%) and Health Sciences (49%), we found that the difference in
levels of agreement was statistically significant for each comparison. Instructors from
Business/Education/Law (33%) were also more likely, to a statistically significant degree, to disagree that
exams do a good job of accurately measuring student’s understanding than respondents from the
Humanities (50%), Health Sciences (49%) and AgBio/Eng (50%). In addition, Instructors from
Business/Education/Law (44%) were also significantly more likely than any other College to disagree that
exams can be an effective way to provide student with feedback in regards to their learning. Instructors
from the Social Sciences (65%), Health Sciences (62%) and Business/Education/Law (64%) were found to
be significantly more likely to agree that there are more effective methods of student assessment that
can be developed other than exams as compared to the Sciences (32%).
Finally, when asked if exams need to be thoroughly tested in order to ensure they accurately measure a
student’s learning, respondents from the Social Sciences (36%) and Humanities & Fine Arts (32%) were
30
significantly more likely to disagree with the statement in contrast to respondents from Sciences (63%),
Health Sciences (58%), Business/Education/Law (57%) and AgBio/Eng (56%).
Table 24 – Examinations as a Form of Assessment of Student’s Learning in Comparison with UBC:
When comparing the results from the U of S to UBC, it was found that the instructors from UBC were
more inclined to believe that students only paid attention to material they think will be on exams and
that more effective methods of student assessment other than exams can be developed by basing them
on how students learn the subject than their colleagues at the U of S. The instructors at UBC were also
more likely agree with the statement that exams need to be thoroughly tested to ensure they accurately
measure a student’s learning. On the other hand, the U of S instructors were more likely to agree when
asked if exams do a good job of accurately measuring students’ understanding and can gauge an
understanding or learning of the subject matter. There was minimal difference, however, within the
responses when asked if there is too much emphasis on exams for evaluating students or whether
exams are effective in providing feedback to students.
31
Section I – Analysis of Gender and Years of Teaching Experience:
We further analyzed the variables of gender and teaching experience of the respondents for the items
highlighted in section one, “opinions about teaching.” For gender, we separated respondents by female
and male, and for teaching experience, respondents were categorized based upon whether they had less
or more than 10 years of experience. When comparing the variables of gender and teaching experience,
there was a significant difference in opinion for items pertaining to the inclusion of social interaction
within the classroom. Specifically, within our analysis, female faculty members with less than 10 years of
experience were more likely to agree with the items, “learning is a social activity” and “I encourage
interaction/interactive learning during my class time,” than male faculty members, regardless of
teaching experience though male faculty members with more than 10 years of experience were the least
likely to agree with those two items.
For male faculty members with more than 10 years of experience and female faculty members with less
than 10 years of experience, they were also found to diverge on items such as: “interactive learning
techniques are very helpful in teaching effectively”, “I regularly involve students in the learning process”
and “learning can be facilitated through the use of social interaction among students” with female
faculty members with less than 10 years of experience consistently demonstrating significantly higher
levels of agreement. In addition, male faculty members with 10 years of experience were also found to
be less likely to agree that they regularly involve students in the learning process than male faculty
members with less than 10 years of experience, and that learning can be facilitated through the use of
social interaction among students when compared to female faculty members with more than 10 years
of experience, though this was only moderately significant at the 0.05 level.
In regards to reflection on personal teaching philosophies and techniques, female faculty members with
less than 10 years of experience were more likely to agree that an instructor is responsible for providing
students with useful feedback when compared to male faculty members with less than 10 years of
experience. However, both male and female faculty members with less than 10 years of experience
were more likely to agree that they regularly review and change, as needed, their teaching techniques to
match the needs of the students than male faculty members with more than 10 years of experience.
When asked if traditional lecturing is a very effective teaching method, male faculty members with more
than 10 years of experience were more likely to agree when compared with female faculty members
with less than 10 years of experience, though this finding was only moderately significant at the 0.05
level. Finally, when asked if respondents felt that they were adequately trained to be a good and
effective teacher, male faculty members with less than 10 years of experience were found to be
significantly more likely to agree than male faculty members with more than 10 years of experience. This
was followed by female faculty members with less than 10 years of experience who were also found to
be more likely to agree than male faculty members with more than 10 years of experience, though this
was only moderately significant at the 0.05 level.
32
In regards to the use of exams, female faculty members with less than 10 years of experience were
significantly more likely to agree that there is currently too much emphasis on exams for evaluating
students than both male and female faculty members with over 10 years of experience. Female faculty
members with less than 10 years of experience were further more likely to agree that more effective
methods of student assessment than exams can be developed by basing them on how students learn a
subject when contrasted to male faculty members with more than 10 years of experience. This finding
was also found to be significant.
33
Section II – General Assessment of Teaching at the U of S:
Section Two addresses the general perceptions and opinions of instructors at the University of
Saskatchewan in regards to questions pertaining to the undergraduate teaching environment at the
University of Saskatchewan.
Table 25 – Quality of Education at the University of Saskatchewan:
Respondents were asked to rate the overall quality of education provided to undergraduate students at
the University of Saskatchewan in comparison to other universities. Utilizing a five-point scale with one
end being, “the overall quality of education at the U of S is much better in comparison to other Canadian
universities” to the other end as being, “the overall quality of education at the U of S is much worse in
comparison to other Canadian universities”, and a sixth option, “I don’t know”, Table 25 illustrates the
results.
Overall, just over 20% of instructors believed that the overall quality of education at the U of S was
better in comparison to other Canadian universities while approximately 12% of the instructors argued it
was worse. However, the majority of responses indicate that the instructors at the U of S believed that
the overall quality of education in this institution was about the same as other Canadian universities.
Another important figure to note is that more than one-quarter of the respondents (28%) replied, “I
don’t know” in regards to this question.
34
Table 26 – Overall Quality of Education at the University of Saskatchewan by Position:
Table 26 isolates the responses derived from Table 25, excluding those who responded “don’t know”,
when taking the position of the faculty member into account. In turn, Assistant Professors and
Sessionals were found to be the least likely to agree that the quality of education at the U of S is better
compared to other Universities, with only one-fifth of the sample from both groups agreeing with the
statement. Conversely, Lecturer/Instructors (44%) and Graduate Students (42%) scored much higher
than the mean (29%), though none of the differences were statistically significant.
Table 27 – Overall Quality of Education at the University of Saskatchewan by College:
When analyzed by College, again excluding those who responded “don’t know”, only 16% of the
instructors from the Humanities & Fine Arts and the Sciences rated the quality of education at the U of S
as being better than other Canadian Universities, quite lower than the mean (29%). Meanwhile,
instructors from AgBio/Eng and Health Sciences were found to have been most likely to agree that the
overall education at the U of S was better than at other universities. Moreover, 13% of the instructors in
Health Sciences gave a rating of “much better” which is more than double the mean (6%). When
comparing the differences between the responses from the higher ratings from Health Sciences to the
responses from the Humanities and the Sciences, we found that the differences were statistically
significant. Furthermore, the difference in response between AgBio and the Humanities was also found
to be significant.
In addition to the overall quality of education at the U of S, instructors were also asked to rate their own
teaching in terms of how effective they feel they are as a teacher to their undergraduate students.
Utilizing a four-point scale ranging from, “Very effective” to “Not at all effective”, with a fifth option
being, “Don’t know”; the results are displayed in Table 28.
35
Table 28 – Personal Rating of Teachers:
Overwhelmingly, 97% of the responding instructors rated themselves as effective educators with 39%
believing that their teaching was very effective and 58% as being somewhat effective. Only 3% of
instructors had doubts about their teaching. Interestingly, this is in significant contrast to the results
displayed in Table 9 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching (see above) where only 37% of the instructors at the
U of S agreed with the statement, “I was adequately trained to be a good and effective teacher”. A
possible explanation for this contrast is that while instructors did not feel like they were trained to be an
effective teacher, they subsequently managed to find ways to be effective within their classrooms.
Table 29 – Personal Rating of Teachers by Position:
When analyzed by positions, the first trend that can be seen is that Graduate Students were much less
inclined to respond that they felt that they were a very effective teacher at that point in their careers
(11%), compared to the mean (39%). Conversely, 82% of the Graduate Student respondents did believe
that they were somewhat effective in their teaching. It should also be noted that 7% of graduate
students did not believe that they were effective in their teaching, which is more than double the mean
(3%). Assistant Professors followed this trend and responded that they were less likely to agree that they
were very effective in their teaching, but more likely to agree that they were somewhat effective.
36
Conversely, Professors, Associate Professors and Sessionals were more likely to have reported that they
were very effective in their teaching.
Table 30 – Personal Rating of Teachers by College:
When analyzed by Colleges, two groups were found to have rated themselves lower than the mean
(39%) in terms of finding their teaching to be very effective: the Sciences (36%) and Social Sciences
(30%). Concurrently, instructors in the Humanities & Fine Arts, Business/Education/Law, and AgBio/Eng
were more likely to rate themselves as very effective. It is also interesting to note that the Social
Sciences and Business/Education/Law displayed a higher rate of faculty rating themselves as not
effective teachers (6%) compared to the overall mean (3%). Finally, it is interesting to note that 100% of
respondents from the Humanities & Fine Arts and AgBio/Eng agreed that they were at least somewhat
effective.
Table 31 – Quality of Education and Personal Evaluation of Teaching Quality in Comparison with UBC:
A comparison between the responses from the past two questions with the two Universities indicates
that there is only a small difference within the instructors’ rating of overall quality. While instructors at
UBC were found to have rated the overall quality of their University as slightly higher than their
37
counterparts at the U of S, the U of S instructors were found to score slightly higher than UBC in terms of
their personal evaluation of teaching.
Instructors at the U of S were asked to describe the teaching environment for them personally by
selecting descriptors from a pre-determined list. From this list, respondents were asked to pick all the
descriptors they felt corresponded with their own sentiments without a limit. Table 32 illustrates the
overall percentage of respondents out of the entire sample of instructors who had chosen each
descriptor.
Table 32 – Perceptions of Teaching Environment at U of S:
Overall, the most commonly selected descriptors were: respectful, traditional, responsible, flexible and
organized, with each obtaining over 30% of the respondents’ selection. The second tier of most
commonly selected responses, which accounted for 20% to 30% of the selection, were: honest,
bureaucratic, conservative, responsive and trustworthy. The responses that were classified as
“sometimes selected” or those that constituted about 10 – 20% of the selection consisted of:
progressive, innovative, empowering, cautious, risk-tolerant and authoritative. Finally, the descriptors
that were the least likely to be chosen were: unfair, chaotic and boring.
38
Table 33 – Perceptions of Teaching Environment by Position:
Perceptions of Teaching Environment by Position
Respectful
Traditional
Responsible
Flexible
Organized
Honest
Bureaucratic
Conservative
Responsive
Trustworthy
Progressive
Innovative
Empowering
Cautious
Risk-tolerant
Authoritative
Unfair
Chaotic
Don't Know
Boring
None
11.2%
10.6%
10.3%
10.0%
5.9%
6.4%
4.8%
6.6%
7.4%
6.0%
5.7%
4.7%
6.5%
6.0%
5.2%
5.3%
6.9%
4.8%
5.0%
4.7% 3.6%
4.6%
4.2%
4.6%
5.0%
7.5%
8.9%
6.2%
4.8%
5.7%
5.9%
4.2%
2.9%
5.1%
6.8%
10.2%
6.8%
3.4%
10.2%
12.1%
8.4%
6.5%
4.7%
6.8%
8.5%
8.4%
6.5%
6.5%
5.1%
3.7%
8.5%
5.1%
8.5%
6.9%
8.4%
5.8%
5.8%
8.9%
7.7%
8.9%
8.9%
10.5%
9.1%
10.6%
7.7%
6.4%
12.9%
10.0%
6.5%
7.5%
4.7%
2.8%
Professors
Associate Professors
Assistant Professors
Sessionals
Lecturer/Instructors
Graduate Students
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
When separated by position, Professors were most likely to view their teaching environment as
organized in contrast to the mean. Associate Professors, on the other hand, were more likely to describe
their teaching environment as innovative, responsive and bureaucratic than the mean. Assistant
Professors were also more likely to describe their teaching environment as innovative; however, they
were less likely to agree that their teaching environment was trustworthy, bureaucratic and responsible.
On the other hand, Sessionals were found to be much likely to regard their teaching environment as
innovative; rather, Sessionals responded with higher levels of agreement to descriptors such as cautious,
honest and flexible. For Lecturer/Instructors, they responded to descriptors such as empowering,
innovative, responsive and honest while less likely to describe their teaching environment as organized
and flexible. Finally, for Graduate Students, they were more likely to agree that their teaching
environment was trustworthy in comparison to the other respondents. Further, they were found to
demonstrate higher levels of agreement with descriptors such as organized and authoritative while less
likely to agree that their teaching environment was conservative, flexible and responsible in comparison
with the mean.
39
Table 34 – Perceptions of Teaching Environment by College:
Perceptions of Teaching Environment by College
Respectful
8.5%
Traditional
8.8%
Responsible
11.2%
8.5%
Flexible
Organized
5.4%
7.2%
Honest
4.8%
8.1%
8.8%
Conservative
7.5%
Responsive
Trustworthy
Progressive
Innovative
5.1%
3.7%
7.5%
6.9%
5.3%
6.1%
6.1%
4.4%
3.1% 4.0% 3.3%
4.1%
4.4%
5.8%
5.8%
4.8%
9.8%
9.3%
6.6%
5.0% 2.9%
4.3% 4.2%
6.3%
5.5%
11.4%
9.0%
8.5%
6.0%
7.0%
6.4%
6.4%
3.4% 3.1% 4.4% 3.7%
8.3%
8.5%
9.5%
7.8%
6.8%
7.1%
8.6%
4.2%
6.2%
3.4%
9.8%
8.9%
12.5%
10.5%
7.5%
7.2%
11.9%
8.9%
8.7%
6.5%
Bureaucratic
11.4%
11.8%
6.1%
6.3%
5.8%
4.8%
Empowering
Cautious
Risktolerant
Humanities & Fine Arts
Authoritative
Sciences
Unfair
Social Sciences
Chaotic
AgBio/Eng
Don't Know
Bus/Ed/Law
Boring
Health Sciences
None
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
When analyzed by Colleges, the Humanities & Fine Arts were more likely to agree that their teaching
environment was unfair, authoritative and conservative in comparison with the other respondents.
Furthermore, amongst the descriptors, faculty members from the Humanities & Fine Arts were most
likely to agree that their teaching environment was traditional and bureaucratic. For the respondents
from the Sciences, they were most likely to agree that their teaching environment was traditional,
followed by responsible and honest. Conversely, they were found to indicate lower levels of agreement
in regards to the descriptors responsive and progressive. In comparison with the other respondents,
respondents from AgBio/Eng were the most likely to agree that their teaching environment is honest
and responsive as compared with the other respondents. They also demonstrated a higher level of
agreement to their teaching environment being innovative than the mean. In Bus/Ed/Law, they saw
their teaching environment as respectful, traditional and respectful. Moreover, in comparison with the
other respondents, faculty members from Bus/Ed/Law were the most likely to respond that their
teaching environment was empowering. Conversely, they were less likely to agree that their teaching
environment were responsible and conservative. Finally, the Health Sciences were more likely to agree
that their teaching environment was progressive, trustworthy and organized as opposed to conservative
and bureaucratic when compared with the mean.
40
Table 35 – Perceptions of Teaching Environment in Comparison with UBC:
For the instructors at UBC, the most common descriptors they selected to describe their teaching
environment were respectful, traditional, responsible, organized and flexible. While these results are
congruent with the U of S, the emphasis in which the faculty at UBC placed on the most common
descriptors were selected less often in comparison with the U of S. Conversely, UBC was found to have
placed more weight within their second-tiered descriptors, such as: bureaucratic, responsive, innovative,
progressive, honest and conservative. When taking both universities into account, the University of
Saskatchewan was found to score higher on the following descriptors: respectful, traditional,
responsible, honest and trustworthy. On the other hand, UBC was found to score higher on these items:
innovative, progressive, risk-tolerant and chaotic.
Instructors were asked to give their opinion on the emphasis between the importance of teaching in
relation to the importance of research within their working environment at the University of
Saskatchewan. In turn, respondents were given a five-point Likert scale ranging from “much more
importance on research” on one end to “much more importance on teaching” on the other. A sixth
option, “Don’t know” was also given. Further, this question gauged the respondents’ opinions on three
separate levels within the University: their department, their College and the individual’s own personal
emphasis.
41
Table 36 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research:
When asked about the emphasis with their department, 49% of the instructors responded that their
department placed more emphasis on research while 28% argued that their department placed equal
importance on both teaching and research. 13% of the respondents believed that their department
placed more emphasis on teaching while another 11% responded that they did not know.
In terms of their College, 60% of instructors agreed that the College placed more emphasis on research,
while 15% believed that their College placed about the same amount of importance on both teaching
and research and less than 10% of the instructors believed that their College placed more emphasis on
teaching. On the other hand, 15% responded that they did not know.
Finally, when the respondents were asked their own personal emphasis, we found that 44% of
instructors at the U of S actually placed more emphasis on teaching as opposed to research compared to
18% who stated the opposite. In addition, 32% of the respondents stated that they placed equal amount
of emphasis on both teaching and research.
42
Table 37 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research by Position:
Amongst the different faculty positions, the trend remains consistent within instructors’ view that their
departments place more emphasis on research with approximately 50% or more of the respondents in
five categories (Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Lecturer/Instructor and Graduate
Students) in agreement. While only 39% of Sessionals agreed with their counterparts, 24% of the
Sessional respondents also stated that they did not know the answer. When asked about their Colleges,
the opinion that more emphasis on research was even more apparent as 71% of Professors, 79% of
Associate Professors, 67% of Assistant Professors and 85% of Lecturer/Instructors overwhelmingly
agreed. Sessional Lecturers, on the other hand, were found to be more likely to advocate that the
College leans more towards a balance between research and teaching as opposed to Associate and
Assistant Professors with both differences being marginally significant. It must be stated, however, that
33% of Sessional Lecturers also responded that they did not know the answer to this question. Within
individual emphasis, the pendulum swings as the level of importance moves away from research. We
begin to see that it is much more common for instructors to respond that they place equal amount of
importance on both research and teaching within their individual careers. Further, teaching begins to be
much more heavily emphasized as 33% of Associate Professors, 35% of Assistant Professors, 67% of
Lecturer/Instructors, and 58% of Graduate Students agreed that they placed more emphasis on
teaching. Not surprisingly, Sessional Lecturers were significantly more likely than all of the other faculty
positions to emphasize teaching.
Overall, it does seem that a divide exists within the opinions of instructors at the U of S in that they view
departments and Colleges as being heavily research-driven while their individual preference constitutes
a much more equal emphasis on both teaching and research if not leaning towards an emphasis on
teaching.
43
Table 38 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research by College Type:
When separated by College types, previous trends continue to be evident as 70% of the instructors in
the Sciences, 50% in the Social Sciences, 44% in AgBio/Eng, 49% in Business/Education/Law and 44% in
Health Sciences agree that departments place more emphasis on research, with a statistically significant
difference between Science and Humanities/Fine Arts and Health Sciences. On the other hand, faculty in
the Humanities/Fine Arts (32%), AgBio/Eng (39%), and Health Sciences (32%) were also likely to report
that their departments demonstrated more balance between emphasis on teaching and research.
In terms of the emphasis at the level of the College, faculty members from the Sciences, Social Sciences,
Humanities and AgBio/Eng were more likely to agree that the emphasis is placed on research as
opposed to teaching. On the other hand, respondents from Business/Education/Law and Health Sciences
were less likely to agree. The differences of opinion between respondents from the Health Sciences
(44%), and the respondents from the Sciences (61%), Humanities (70%), AgBio/Eng (65%), and Social
Sciences (68%) were further found to be significant. As well, the differences between the responses
from Business/Education/Law (53%) and that of the Sciences, Humanities and Social Science were also
found to be statistically significant.
Table 38 demonstrates that for individual faculty, however, there is a shift in emphasis towards an equal
balance for both research and teaching or even putting more emphasis on teaching as opposed to a
research focus. This is exemplified in the responses from instructors in Health Sciences where 52%
placed more importance on teaching and 33% placed an equal emphasis on teaching and research as
opposed to only 15% of the instructors who placed more individual emphasis on research. A similar
trend can be seen with instructors in Business/Education/Law, AgBio/Eng and Humanities/Fine Arts. In
contrast, instructors in the Sciences and Social Sciences displayed a more distributed range of responses.
For example, the difference in emphasis between faculty members from Business/Education/Law
(where 51% emphasize teaching more) and the Sciences (where only 30% emphasize teaching more)
was found to be statistically significant.
44
Table 39 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research within Departments in Comparison with UBC:
When comparing the results from the U of S to UBC in relation to departments, the faculty at UBC was
found to be more likely to agree that their department places much more emphasis on research as
opposed to teaching. Despite both Universities’ instructors agreeing that departments at both
Universities emphasize research over teaching, UBC was found to be 14% higher than the U of S whereas
more U of S instructors agreed that their departments placed about the same amount of importance on
teaching and learning than UBC.
Table 40 – Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research within College in Comparison with UBC:
At the College level, both UBC and the U of S reported that the majority of emphasis within Colleges is
placed on research with UBC reporting even higher levels than the U of S. There is very little difference
45
between the responses at the two institutions that the College placed equal importance between
teaching and research. Another interesting figure illustrated on Table 39 is that 15% of instructors at the
U of S did not know where the College placed emphasis as opposed to just 7% from UBC.
Table 41 –Perceptions on the Emphasis between Teaching and Research within Individuals in Comparison with UBC:
When comparing individual instructors between the two Colleges, UBC instructors were found to be
more likely to place their individual emphasis on research in comparison to the U of S. Specifically, 36%
of UBC faculty agreed that they placed more importance on research compared to 18% for the U of S. In
contrast, 44% of the faculty at the U of S responded that they placed more emphasis on teaching as
opposed to 29% of the faculty at UBC, while an equal proportion of UBC and U of S faculty responded
that that they placed the same amount of importance on both teaching and research.
46
Table 42 – Assessment of Support of Teaching Excellence:
Respondents were asked their opinions and perceptions about the support services provided to teachers
at the University of Saskatchewan. The statements displayed on the above table were asked in a
randomized order and respondents rated their level of agreement using a five-point Likert scale, ranging
from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree” with a sixth option being, “Don’t know”. The results are
displayed in Table 42.
In regards to support services, U of S instructors were most likely to agree that they were given
autonomy to develop and modify their course curriculum to meet their students’ needs (85%). In terms
of technologies to facilitate teaching, a majority of instructors agreed that the technologies within the
classrooms at the U of S are adequate (69%). Further, instructors agreed that they received adequate
support (64%) and training (59%) on the use of technologies for teaching for the use of this technology.
When asked about training and education provided to instructors for teaching, respondents agreed that
they are provided with information on effective teaching methods and tools (73%). They were much
more ambivalent, however, when asked if they were provided with enough training and education on
how to be an effective teacher with 41% of the respondents agreeing and 24% disagreeing. This is
further supported by the response received in regards to the statement, “Information on effective
teaching methods and tools is regularly provided to me by my colleagues, department, and/or college”,
where 57% of instructors disagreed. These results are quite consistent in reference back to an item
47
asked in Table 9 – Personal Beliefs in Teaching (pg. 20) where only 37% of instructors at the U of S
believed that they were trained to be a good and effective teacher.
Though access to training and education on effective teaching was found to be an issue with many
respondents, they were also asked if the training and education, when received, was worthwhile. In
response, 45% of instructors agreed that the training they did receive was worthwhile while only 14%
disagreed with the statement. On the flip side, when asked if instructors were provided with adequate
incentives and rewards to be a good teacher, 59% of respondents disagreed in contrast to only 22% of
the respondents who agreed. Finally, when asked whether or not instructors had time to devote to
becoming a more effective teacher, considering all of the demands and constraints placed on them, 47%
of respondents agreed that they did not have time, while close to one-third who disagreed (32%).
Table 43 – Assessment of Support of Teaching Effectiveness by Position:
When the support for teaching is explored at the level of position, the first trend that can be seen are
the low levels of agreement from Graduate Students in terms of training and education on the area of
teaching. They were found to score low on the items that gauged whether they received enough training
for teaching with technologies (43%, while mean is 59%), access to information on teaching (64%, while
mean is 73%), and they argued that they are not provided with information on effective teaching by
their colleagues, department and/or college (21%, while mean is 40%). In addition, and perhaps most
significantly, only 4% of the Graduate Students responded that they were provided with adequate
incentives and rewards to be a good teacher at the U of S, compared with a mean of 22%.
In terms of freedom and autonomy for instructors to develop and modify their course curriculum to
meet student needs, Sessional Lecturers were less likely to agree with the statement with only 80% of
the respondents agreeing in comparison to, for example, 91% of the Associate Professors and 92%
Lecturer/Instructors agreeing. Furthermore, the item, “the training and education I receive on effective
teaching at the U of S is a worthwhile use of my time”, produces an interesting range of results as
Assistant Professors were found to consistently respond with higher levels of agreement than
Professors, Associate Professors and Sessionals, though only the difference between Assistant
48
Professors and Associate Professors was found to be significant. This is consistent with the results of the
item pertaining to whether instructors have access to effective teaching methods/tools where Assistant
Professors and Lecturer/Instructors scored higher than the mean.
In regards to the question on whether instructors feel that they are provided with information on
effective teaching methods by their colleagues, department and/or College, Assistant Professors (49%)
and Professors (45%) were more likely to agree with this statement while Sessionals were not (35%).
When asked if instructors were provided with adequate incentives and rewards for being an effective
teacher, 27% of Assistant Professors and 31% of Lecturer/Instructors agreed in comparison with the
mean (22%). Conversely, only 16% of Associate Professors agreed with the same statement. Finally,
when asked if given all the demands and constraints placed upon me in my role at the U of S, I do not
have time to devote to becoming a more effective teacher, Sessional Lecturers demonstrated lower
levels of agreement (25%) as compared with Professors (62%), Associate Professors (72%) and Assistant
Professors (51%); all of which were significant. In addition, in terms of significant differences, Assistant
Professors were marginally more likely to agree than Associate Professors.
Table 44 – Assessment of Support of Teaching Effectiveness by College:
When analyzed by Colleges, the instructors from Humanities & Fine Arts were significantly less likely to
agree that classroom technologies are adequate for their teaching needs in comparison with the faculty
from Business/Education/Law. In regards to access to information for instructors on effective teaching,
instructors in Agriculture & Bioresources/Engineering, and Health Sciences were more likely to agree
than the overall mean whereas the faculty in Business/Education/Law and the Sciences were less likely
to agree. Further, when asked if information on effective teaching methods and tools is regularly
provided to the faculty member by their colleagues, department and/or college, faculty from the Health
Sciences remained significantly more likely to agree in contrast to the faculty members from
Business/Education/Law and the Sciences. This trend continues when asked the question of whether the
training and education instructors received at the U of S was worth their time, with Agriculture &
Bioresources/Engineering and Health Sciences responding with statistically higher levels of agreement
in comparison with the instructors in Humanities and Fine Arts, the Sciences and Business/Education/
Law.
49
Table 45 – Assessment of Support of Teaching Effectiveness in Comparison with UBC:
When comparing the results from the two Universities in relation to the ratings of support services for
teaching excellence, there are only slight differences to be found. While the U of S was found to score
higher on a few items, they were all relatively small differences separating them from UBC. It is
important to note that the survey on UBC only administered the items displayed on Table 45. The other
items pertaining to assessment of support services as seen in Tables 42 – 44 were only asked in the U of
S survey and hence, comparisons with UBC cannot be made.
50
Section II – Analysis of Gender and Years of Teaching Experience:
In looking at gender and years of teaching experience for Section II, “General Assessment of Teaching at
the U of S,” significant differences were found when asked whether faculty members personally placed
more emphasis on research, teaching, or both. In turn, male faculty members with less than 10 years of
experience were more likely to focus on research in comparison with male faculty members with more
than 10 years of experience and female faculty members with less than 10 years of experience. For both
female faculty members with less than 10 years and male faculty members with more than 10 years of
experience, they both responded that they place an equal amount of emphasis on research and teaching
with a slight tendency to lean towards teaching.
When asked if the training and education they received on effective teaching at the University of
Saskatchewan was a worthwhile use of their time, female faculty members with less than 10 years of
experience were more likely to show higher levels of agreement than male faculty members with less
than 10 years of experience. This was found to be significant at the 0.05 level of significance. Further,
female faculty members with less than 10 years of experience were also found to be more likely to agree
in comparison with male faculty members with more than 10 years of experience. This finding, however,
was only moderately significant.
51
Section III – Efforts and Initiatives for Teaching Excellence:
U of S instructors were asked their opinions on efforts and initiatives taken by the University specifically
to promote and improve teaching excellence.
Table 46 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching Excellence:
Table 46 gauges general attitudes towards efforts and initiatives to promote teaching excellence at the
University of Saskatchewan. On a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly
disagree” with a sixth option being, “Don’t know”, respondents were asked to rate their level of
agreement with the statements.
Encouragingly, 72% of instructors believe that initiatives aimed at improving teaching excellence at the U
of S are important. Furthermore, 76% of instructors agreed that provision of training for teachers is
essential for improving the quality of teaching at the U of S. This may not be a surprising result
considering the results from Table 9 (pg. 20) where a majority of instructors readily acknowledged (65%)
that they would need to spend time on improving their teaching or the results illustrated in Table 36 (pg.
44) where 44% of instructors even argued that they placed a heavier emphasis on their teaching as
opposed to their research. This is indicative of a consistent trend of conviction and desire among many
instructors to be effective teachers.
Conversely, when asked if resources allocated to improving teaching excellence at the U of S are
adequate, only 34% of the respondents agreed. When asked if teachers are provided with adequate
rewards and incentives to encourage or promote teaching excellence, the majority of instructors
52
disagreed (62%). This is echoing the sentiments previously displayed on Table 42 (pg. 50) where 59% of
instructors disagreed when asked if they were provided with adequate incentives and rewards to be a
good teacher. Overall, the sentiment is clear. Instructors at the U of S are committed to improving their
teaching and would welcome any initiatives towards realizing that goal. They feel, however, that they
are not being provided with the resources or the incentives to realize this goal.
Table 47 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching Excellence by Position:
While the majority of instructors readily agreed that providing training for teachers is essential for
improving the quality of teaching, it is interesting to note that Assistant Professors were more likely to
agree with this statement (82%), while Associate Professors were least likely to agree (68%). It is also
interesting to note that out of the Graduate Student respondents, only 64% agreed that initiatives for
improving teaching excellence at the U of S is important.
In terms of whether resources allocated to improving teaching at the U of S are adequate less than 40%
of respondents in each category agreed, with Sessionals and Graduate Students the most likely to
disagree. When asked if teachers were provided with adequate rewards and incentives to encourage or
promote teaching excellence less than one-quarter of respondents in all categories agreed, and, while
this represents a small proportion of the overall graduate student population, perhaps the most
discouraging response was that only 4% of graduate students agreed. Finally, in terms of the success of
efforts to improve teaching, 40% of Professors agreed that efforts had succeeded, which was
significantly higher than those respondents who were in the Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, or
Sessional Lecturer categories.
53
Table 48 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching Excellence by College:
When analyzing by College, faculty members in Health Sciences and Business/Education/Law were found
to more likely agree that any initiatives for improving teaching excellence at the U of S are very
important in contrast to the Sciences, though only the difference in means between
Business/Education/Law and Science was found to be statistically significant. In terms of whether
providing training for teachers is an essential part to improving the quality of teaching at the U of S,
faculty members in Business/Education/Law also demonstrated a significantly higher level of agreement
in relation to the faculty members in the Humanities/Fine Arts. In terms of the success of efforts to
improve the quality of teaching at the U of S, the Humanities/Fine Arts and the Sciences continue to
display low levels of agreement. In contrast, 40% of the instructors in AgBio/Eng agreed that efforts have
been successful.
In terms of resources, the instructors in Health Sciences (41%) displayed the highest levels of agreement
when asked if the resources allocated to improving teaching excellence are adequate, particularly in
comparison to the Humanities/Fine Arts, which was least likely to agree (24%). Meanwhile, across the
entire institution, less than one-quarter (and in most cases less than one-fifth) of all faculty agreed that
teachers are provided with adequate rewards and incentives to encourage or promote teaching
excellence.
54
Table 49 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching Excellence in Comparison with UBC:
When comparing attitudes towards efforts and initiatives to promote teaching excellence with UBC,
there was minimal difference between the Colleges in terms of their level of agreement with the
importance of providing initiatives and training for teachers as instructors from both Universities agreed
that it was crucial. This was also the case for their ratings on how successful efforts were to improve
teaching excellence at their respective Universities, in that both displayed pretty low levels of
agreement and the differences between them were once again minimal.
In terms of resources, the U of S displayed a higher level of agreement than UBC when asked if resources
allocated to improving teaching excellence are adequate. UBC respondents, however, were found to be
slightly more likely to agree that teachers are provided with adequate rewards and incentives to
encourage or promote teaching excellence, though at both Universities only one-fifth (or less) of faculty
members agreed that adequate rewards and incentives are in place to encourage teaching excellence.
55
Table 50 – Familiarity with Initiatives and Efforts in Teaching Excellence:
The U of S instructors were asked their familiarity with the efforts or initiatives that senior
administration has implemented to advance learning and teaching at the University of Saskatchewan.
On a four-point Likert scale, ranging from “Very familiar” to “Not at all familiar” with a fifth option being,
“Don’t know”, respondents rated their level of familiarity.
Based on Table 50, only half of instructors who replied to the survey reported that they were somewhat
or very familiar with the ongoing initiatives related to teaching excellence on campus. This does shed
some light on the results of Table 46 – Attitudes towards Efforts and Initiatives to Promote Teaching
Excellence (pg. 55). In particular, when asked if efforts to improve teaching excellence at the U of S have
been successful in improving the quality of teaching at the U of S, 29% of the respondents replied that
they did not know. This may also help to explain why there was quite a low level of agreement on that
same item.
Table 51 – Familiarity with Initiatives and Efforts in Teaching Excellence by Position:
56
When separated by position, Professors were found to be the most likely to be familiar with the efforts
and initiatives to advance learning and teaching at the U of S, of which 58.8% responded that they were
familiar. In comparison, Assistant Professors and Sessionals were significantly less likely to be familiar.
Furthermore, Associate Professors were also significantly more likely to be familiar than Sessionals.
Overall, the variance in means for this item was found to be significant at the 0.01 level.
Table 52 – Familiarity with Initiatives and Efforts in Teaching Excellence by College:
When separated by College, faculty members from Business/Education/Law were found to be most
likely to be either somewhat or very familiar with ongoing efforts and initiatives that U of S Senior
Administration has implemented to advance learning and teaching while the Humanities/Fine Arts
indicated a lower level of familiarity. However, only 5.1% of the faculty members from
Business/Education/Law classified themselves as “very familiar” as opposed to the faculty members
from the Sciences and AgBio/Eng where 10% or more of their respective faculty members indicated that
they were very aware.
Table 53 – Familiarity with Initiatives and Efforts in Teaching Excellence in Comparison with UBC:
57
When comparing faculty familiarity with initiatives and efforts of teaching excellence implemented by
senior administration on campus, instructors from both Universities showed comparable levels of
familiarity. At the University of Saskatchewan, 50% of respondents classified themselves as familiar
while 53% of respondents at UBC considered themselves to be familiar with their initiatives. In contrast,
the U of S instructors indicated that they were more likely to be less familiar with the initiatives on their
campus as 47% of respondents stated that they were not familiar as opposed to 44% of the instructors
at UBC. Overall, UBC appears to show slightly higher levels of familiarity although the results show a high
percentage of instructors at both institutions (44% for UBC and 47% for the U of S) who are unfamiliar
with the ongoing efforts and initiatives to improve teaching and learning.
Table 54 – Aided Awareness of Efforts and Initiatives:
Respondents were asked their previous level of awareness of units, efforts and initiatives at the U of S to
advance learning and teaching. Given the list above, instructors responded by selecting “yes” for ones
they were familiar with and “no” if they were unfamiliar. Moreover, they were also given a third option,
“don’t know”. The results are displayed on Table 54.
According to the instructors at the University of Saskatchewan, the vast majority (93%) of respondents
were most aware of the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness (GMCTE) on campus. Further,
over 50% of respondents were aware of ITS Instructional Support Services (66%), ITS Training Services
(64%), the University Learning Centre (64%) and Educational Media Access and Production (52%).
Perhaps not surprisingly, very few instructors were aware of the newly established Centre for Discovery
in Learning (10%).
58
Table 55 - Aided Awareness of Efforts and Initiatives by Position:
When separated into their respective faculty positions, faculty across all levels (Professor, Associate
Professor, Assistant Professor, and Lecturer, reported almost complete awareness of the Gwenna Moss
Centre for Teaching Effectiveness, while only 86% of Graduate Students and 88% of Sessionals
responded that they were aware of the GMCTE. Furthermore, Graduate Students displayed a lower level
of awareness across the board for all of the teaching and learning initiatives on campus. This can be
expected as Graduate Students still lack the years of experience with teaching, and may be newer to
campus (at least in their role as teacher). Sessionals also displayed lower levels of awareness with the
efforts and initiatives for teaching and learning on campus in comparison to other job categories,
although the gap is not as big as Graduate Students.
This trend continued for all other educational support services on campus, where faculty (in positions of
Professor, Associate Professor, and Assistant Professor) were more aware than Sessionals and graduate
students. For example, approximately 70% or more of faculty are aware of ITS (Training Services and
Instructional Support Services), while approximately 60% of faculty are aware of eMAP. While
Sessionals and Graduate Students are largely aware of ITS Training Services (65% and 67% respectively),
awareness drops to just over 60% for ITS Instructional Support Services and below 50% (48% and 32%
respectively) for eMAP. Awareness among all groups declines for initiatives such as Learning
Communities, the Provost’s Prize and Grant for Innovation, the (now cancelled) TEL Program, and a
college level educational technology support group, though the same trend of faculty being more aware
than Sessionals and Graduate Students continues.
59
Table 56 – Aided Awareness of Efforts and Initiatives by College:
In terms of Colleges, instructors in the Humanities & Fine Arts (78%) were more likely to be aware of the
University Learning Centre, while only 58% of instructors in Business/Education/Law were aware of the
University Learning Centre. For the Centre for Discovery in Learning, only 5% of the faculty in the
Sciences indicated awareness. In contrast, 16% of the instructors in the Social Sciences were aware of
that Centre. In terms of awareness of an Educational Technology Support Group in their College, only
14% of the Sciences and 16% of the Social Sciences indicated awareness. This is in contrast to 53% of
instructors in Business/Education/Law and 55% in Health who expressed awareness for the same item,
which indicates a fairly large gap exists between the Colleges and likely indicates disproportionate access
to such services between the Colleges.
Instructors were asked their opinions on how effective the efforts and initiatives taken by senior
administration to advance learning and teaching at the University of Saskatchewan have been. On a
four-point Likert scale ranging from “Very successful” to “Not at all successful” with a fifth option being,
“Don’t know”, instructors rated their level of agreement on the items displayed in Table 57.
60
Table 57 – Success of Efforts and Initiatives:
Close to two-thirds (65%) of instructors agreed that efforts and initiatives implemented by senior
administration at the U of S have enabled them to effectively use technology in teaching. This is in
comparison to 19% who disagreed. When asked if the efforts and initiatives engaged students in their
education, 40% of instructors agreed while 32% disagreed and 28% did not know. In relation to student
connection to their discipline, 34% of instructors agreed versus 32% who disagreed while 34% did not
know. In addition, when asked if the efforts and initiatives implemented by senior administration
worked to ensure that student learning at the U of S is of a form that will be retained for the long-term,
37% of the respondents did not know, higher than the 31% who agreed and the 32% who disagreed.
Instructors further disagreed that the efforts and initiatives ensured student learning is measured in a
more objective and accurate manner with 36% disagreeing, in contrast to 29% who agreed and 35% who
did not know. Finally, when asked if the efforts and initiatives helped instructors to find teaching more
fulfilling, a majority of respondents (51%) disagreed with the statement. This may not be surprising
considering the results from earlier (Table 42, pg. 50) where 59% of instructors disagreed when asked if
they were provided with adequate incentives and rewards to be a good teacher at the U of S.
61
Table 58 – Success of Efforts and Initiatives by Position:
On the whole, there was little agreement on whether any initiative undertaken at the U of S, with the
exception of effectively using technology in teaching, had been successful regardless of position. Only
half of the Graduate Student respondents agreed that the efforts and initiatives implemented by senior
administration has enabled professors to effectively use technology in teaching, while close to twothirds of faculty (with slight variation between ranks) and over three-quarters of Lecturer/Instructors
(77%) agreed with this item.
Interestingly, Associate Professors were found to display lower level of agreement for all the items in
comparison to the mean. For example, with respect to whether or not the efforts and initiatives better
prepare students for the workforce Associate Professors (27%) were found to have agreed the least, and
all other categories of instructor were only between 32% and 45% agreement (except
Lecturer/Instructor at 77% agreement). And only 22% of Associate Professors agreed that the efforts
and initiatives to advance teaching and learning at the U of S ensures that student learning at the U of S
is of a form that will be retained for the long-term as opposed to the mean (31%).
Finally, when asked if efforts and initiatives are helping Professors find teaching more fulfilling, 31% of
Professors agreed, which is higher than the overall mean (24%), while Sessionals (19%) and
Lecturers/Instructors (15%) were significantly less likely to agree.
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Table 59 – Success of Efforts and Initiatives by College:
Between Colleges, an interesting contrast exists within the item, “Engaging students in their education”
where only 22% of the instructors in the Sciences agreed whereas 59% of the instructors in Health
agreed (the mean was 40%). This divergence continues when asked if the efforts and initiatives
implemented by senior administration made students more connected to their discipline. Only 21% of
the respondents in the Sciences agreed with this item in contrast to 45% of the respondents in the
Health Sciences.
When asked if the efforts and initiatives to advance teaching and learning at the U of S better prepared
students for the workforce, an interesting spectrum of responses was produced according to the
colleges with 22% of the Sciences and 28% of the Humanities/Fine Arts agreeing, which are both more
than 10% under the mean (39%). On the other hand, instructors in AgBio/Eng (48%) and Health (54%)
were significantly more likely to be in agreement. When asked if the success of the efforts and initiatives
by the College helps professors find teaching more fulfilling, respondents from AgBio/Eng were most
likely to agree (39%), in comparison to faculty members from the Sciences (16%), Humanities/Fine Arts
(18%) and Business/Education/Law (19%), who were significantly less likely to agree.
Based on Table 59, the instructors in the Health Sciences and AgBio/Eng were consistently found to have
above average levels of agreement on all the items. With the exception of one item, this was also the
case for the Social Sciences, even though the divergence between their responses and the overall means
were not as pronounced. On the other hand, with the exception of one item, the respondents in the
Sciences and Humanities/Fine Arts were found to consistently respond with a lower level of agreement
than the mean.
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Section III – Analysis of Gender and Years of Teaching Experience:
When separated by gender and years of teaching experience, male faculty members with more than 10
years of teaching experience were more likely to disagree with the statement that teachers are provided
with adequate rewards and incentives to encourage or promote teaching excellence as compared with
female faculty members with less than 10 years of experience; a finding that was significant at the 0.05
level of significance.
In addition, when asked how familiar respondents were with the efforts or initiatives that U of S senior
administration implemented to advance teaching and learning, male faculty members who have had
more than 10 years of experience were more likely to demonstrate higher awareness than both male
and female faculty members with less than 10 years of experience. This was found to be significant at
the 0.05 level. Moreover, female faculty members with more than 10 years of experience were more
likely to be familiar with the efforts and initiatives in comparison with male faculty members with less
than 10 years of experience, though this difference was found to be only moderately significant. Overall,
faculty members with more years of experience responded with higher levels of awareness. Male
faculty members with 10 years or more experience scored the highest while male faculty members with
less than 10 years of experience were found to be the least likely to be aware of the ongoing efforts and
initiatives to advance teaching and learning at the U of S.
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Conclusion
This survey of faculty attitudes to teaching and learning at the University of Saskatchewan reveals that
the respondents across all ranks and all Colleges tend to hold teaching in high regard, but also feel
discouraged by the lack of training, incentives, commitment and rewards given by the institution
(including the department and College level) for this activity. On the other hand, respondents were also
found to lack a strong awareness of the current and ongoing efforts, initiatives and supports for teaching
excellence at the University of Saskatchewan, which may be a contributing factor for their feeling of
discouragement. In comparing results with those from the University of British Columbia, it was found
that respondents from both Universities hold similar views regarding their personal devotion towards
teaching, feel a perceived lack of support for teaching given by their University and have some level of
unfamiliarity with the ongoing efforts and initiatives to promote teaching excellence.
As well, it is important to note that this survey is intended to serve as a base line for future surveys of
faculty attitudes at the University of Saskatchewan, with the intention of determining how attitudes
change over the course of the institution’s second, and into the third, integrated planning cycle.
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