Measurement of faculty productivity

Even though it is very difficult to define and measure faculty productivity, it is currently being attempted. These measurements are used to aid in decisions on salary, promotion, and tenure within an academic department, as well as to allocate resources among departments or schools on a campus and among institutions in a multiinstitution state higher education system. As the financial resources available to higher education fail to grow as rapidly in the t 970's as in the halcyon 1960's, distribution of the limited supply of dollars becomes an issue of great concern to those in academe. Studies of faculty salaries have been conducted by Katz [1973], Siegfried and White [1973], Koch and Chizmar [1973], Loeb and Ferber [197t] , Tuckman and Leahey [1975], Bayer and Astin [ t975], and Freeman [1977]. This study differs from most previous ones in that it uses the human capital approach, as well as severn measures of productivity, to explain faculty salary differentials. Results of several alternative models are presented and compared with previous studies. Freeman used a human capital model with productivity variables, but his study examined patterns of rewards across institutions,while this paper investigates salary structure within a single university. Data for this study was collected during personal interviews with 281 faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences at a large public uni*Douglass College, Rutgers University. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Econometric Society Meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey, September t976. I wish to acknowledge financial support for this research from the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Grant No. DL 91-25-74-27, the University of Missouri Computer Center, and the University of North Carolina Computer Center. I wish to thank Thomas Kniesner and Ralph Pfouts for helpful comments. versity in the Spring of 1974. Faculty were asked to estimate the number of hours per week that they devoted to each of six work activities, defined as follows: classroom instruction (TEACH); individual instruction; grading, preparation, and advising; administrative work (ADMIN); other professional activities (editorial work, attending professional meetings, public lectures, consulting); and research. Faculty were also questioned about their education, years of work experience, and publications. Faculty productivity should properly be measured in terms of the sum of scholarly productivity, teaching productivity, and administrative and service productivity. A faculty member's scholarly productivity should be measured by both the quantity and quality of publications, not just the number alone. Teaching productivity should include both a quantitative measure, such as student-hours, and a qualitative measure of teaching effectiveness; however, there does not yet seem to be any satisfactory measure of this. Measurement of service and administrative productivity also should have both quantitative and qualitative aspects; however, measures of quality are as yet unavailable. Number of publications, a frequently used measure of faculty productivity, is an easy, albeit incomplete, piece of information to collect. Administrators may use it as a signaling device in making decisions on rewards for faculty members. The well known saying "publish or perish" attests to the popularity of this procedure. In this study, the number of publications was augmented by measures of publication quality to measure scholarly productivity. Three categories of publication variables were defined: books (BOOK); articles in highly rated journals (ART); all other publications (MISC). Studies have been