Researchers discover that instructors have emotions

[Hibush]

An article in today's IHE claims to have discovered that college instructors have emotions and that they

I'm not in this field, but I have trouble believing the claim that "No qualitative studies to date 'have directly asked professors to identify and describe their emotions related to teaching and research.'" My department doesn't publish the discussions at coffee break and faculty meetings, but we do ask and answer those questions quite a lot. Do the posts on The Fora (and CHE forums) count?"

[drbrt]

I'm in DBER at the undergraduate level. Our field is pretty much exclusively focused on the students, not the instructors, so I'd be shocked if anyone in my field or a related one bothered to look at faculty emotions. Their sample diversity is really concerning though.

[polly_mer]

Their sample diversity is really concerning though.

"Interviews with 11 faculty members identified 46 different emotions -- most commonly enjoyment, frustration, excitement, happiness and anxiety. A survey of 102 pretenure faculty members found more enjoyment, happiness, pride, satisfaction and relaxation regarding teaching." (IHE article)

The IHE article mentions nothing about what kinds of institutions where these faculty were employed, what fields were in the sample, or indeed anything related to how representative the sample is to academia at large.  The comment section in IHE already has several adjuncts pointing out the problems with focusing only on full-time faculty.

[Parasaurolophus]

Wow, that fruit is really high up the tree!


Also worthy of note, in addition to what all of you are already pointing out:

The study identifies certain limitations. For one, the vast majority (upwards of 80 percent) of interviewees and respondents were white, meaning that research on the emotional experiences of more diverse groups is needed going forward. The study notes it also only involved faculty members at two unnamed public research institutions in the Midwest.

Somebody's building a high-fruit research programme!

[drbrt]

Somebody's building a high-fruit research programme!

This is a problem with DBER and it seems higher ed research. The only schools that can afford undergrad ed faculty are research schools, so only students at research schools tend to be researched.

[pedanticromantic]

Well, I'm happy someone is studying it, even if it's just an early study and really flawed. It's a start.
For all the effort my own school has gone to regarding student mental health, there has been nary a word on faculty mental health, and our insurance only covers us for a whopping 2 sessions a year with a therapist.
The university did an e-survey about 2 years ago asking generally for thoughts that might relate to emotion, but we never heard a word back--I suspect they didn't want to release the findings.
UK has done some studies recently into burnout and mental health problems. I believe the Guardian got a rate of 80% suffering from anxiety and depression (can't remember the details).
Clearly, it's an area that needs some study. If faculty aren't happy, that permeates to students. Probably the best thing universities can do for student mental health is improve faculty mental health.

[Hibush]

I'm in DBER at the undergraduate level. Our field is pretty much exclusively focused on the students, not the instructors, so I'd be shocked if anyone in my field or a related one bothered to look at faculty emotions. Their sample diversity is really concerning though.

You should publish a more impactful paper, using forum posts the source, titles "Emotional responses of faculty to students turning in a second late assignment and asking not to be dinged for it." You might run into a page limit before running out of responses to describe and classify.

Then you could move on to "Emotional responses of faculty to students texting in lecture."

You could advance the field dramatically and be the most published author in your department without changing your web surfing habits.

[phattangent]

You could advance the field dramatically and be the most published author in your department without changing your web surfing habits.

Genius. Make all the forum posters co-authors. Should be guaranteed to improve your Erdős number — I believe mine is three.