Students Learn Better From Professors Outside Tenure System

September 11, 2013, 1:31 PM

Students Learn Better From Professors Outside Tenure System

By Khadeeja Safdar

Tenured professors at higher education institutions are certainly given more prestige than other lecturers. But are they better teachers? In a new working paper published by theNational Bureau of Economic Research, researchers David N. Figlio,Morton O. Schapiro and Kevin B. Soter find quite the opposite — that is, tenured professors or those on their way to tenure don’t enhance student learning as much as lecturers outside the tenure system.Tenure effectively implies a contractual right to keep the job for life, barring unusual situations. Tenure-line professors have to fulfill certain requirements, which include publishing research, to progress toward tenure and promotion. Other lecturers are hired on a contractual basis, giving the university the option to renew their contracts.

In just under four decades, there has been a major shift away from the tenure system, with more universities hiring non-tenure-line professors. Nearly 60% of all instructional faculty at U.S. institutions, not including graduate student employees, were in the tenure system in 1975, according to data compiled by the American Association of University Professors. By 2009, the share declined to about half as much.

Using data on more than 15,000 undergraduate freshmen who enteredNorthwestern University between 2001 and 2008, Messrs. Figlio, Schapiro and Soter compared the teaching quality of professors in the tenure system to non-tenure-track lecturers. They looked specifically at their impact on student learning in introductory-level classes.

The researchers found that students taught by instructors outside the tenure system were more likely to take another class in the same subject and were also more likely to receive better grades in the subsequent class than those who had been taught by tenured or tenure-track professors. The results were more pronounced among relatively less-qualified students, as measured by standardized test scores.

“Our results provide evidence that the rise of full-time designated teachers at U.S. colleges and universities may be less of a cause for alarm than some people think, and indeed, may actually be educationally beneficial,” the researchers write.

Since most of Northwestern’s non-tenure-track professors are full-time and long-term, the paper speaks very little, Mr. Figlio says, as to whether it would be a good idea for universities to have their classes taught by adjuncts — part-time professors who are usually hired for the short-term.

The difference between professors in the tenure system and other full-time lecturers has to do with the reward system for the former. The criterion for retaining tenure-track faculty typically places a greater emphasis on research than teaching. “You’re more likely to be retained if you’re a mediocre teacher and an outstanding researcher than the other way around,” Mr. Figlio says.

Should research-focused, tenure-line faculty be teaching at all? It would be “irresponsible” to do away with research faculty, Mr. Figlio says, since “research and teaching are highly complementary.” In addition, the paper focuses on introductory-level classes; it’s unclear whether tenured professors would outperform non-tenure-line lecturers in more advanced courses.