Abstract:

In many educational institutions faculty training is constructed to meet one or more needs of faculty in order to enhance their given skills sets or to obtain additional skills/training. However, if you were to survey most faculty members, many would respond that current faculty training is centered on regulatory/compliance or performance evaluation-based factors. On the other hand, why not have a mixture of professional development training in which the faculty member can gain more training in areas where he or she would like to explore for future professional interests? This paper will focus on how faculty training construction is based on various types of needs assessment created by administrators or how they might take general observations to make decisions that not only cost time and money, but also affect the daily and future performance and interactions of faculty with students and other members of Academia. The key aim of this paper is to look at the way needs assessment is applied to determine faculty training needs and to evaluate whether or not current methodology really does work or serves as a “place marker” for higher education administrators and staff to create faculty training to meet federal, state and/or local needs, as well as to meet their accreditation standards in reporting to the training processes and how they address the training needs in general. Theoretically, training is used to enhance or update one’s current skills or education; whereas, education is used in areas where the faculty or staff member may not have no prior or advanced knowledge in a given areas. Thus, this paper will specifically focus on the training aspects to address the current skills sets of today’s faculty members and how higher education can help to enhance and give more value to their skills sets to help them develop both academically and professionally. Therefore, this paper will look at the framing of needs assessment approaches used in higher education to address such training needs, as well as address how today’s educational institutions can modify or recreate their needs assessment methodology to better create training opportunities that add not only more training effectiveness, but more learning substance and value to today’s faculty as learners.

Keywords:

Faculty training, needs assessment, professional development.