Factors in Teacher Assignments: Measuring Workload by Effort. AIR Forum 1980 Paper.

The way that department heads interpret the effort required by college faculty to teach classes was studied with a national sample of 491 department heads in 25 major U.S. universities. Based on the responses of department heads, a model was developed to relate the effort required to teach a class to the level, size, instructional mode, and discipline of the class. As a validation measure, the model was applied to faculty responses to a typical faculty activity form. The relationship of effort to the variables was investigated by developing linear models. All of the variables were found to make a difference in the amount of effort required to teach a class. In the perceptions of the department heads, as enrollment increases, effort increases but at a decreasing rate. Additionally, as the anticipated effort to teach a class or a group of classes increases, the time spent increases but at a decreasing rate. The relative time spent on a class by an individual with more than one class is proportional to the relative effort to teach the class. It is argued that evaluation of faculty resources should be based on effort required rather than on time devoted to given tasks. (SW)