| At the heart of the university or college are its faculty members, and with that knowledge, many higher education institutions have recognized the value of faculty professional development (Sorcinelli, Austin, Eddy, & Beach, 2006). Although faculty development is not a new phenomenon in the history of higher education, the role it plays, and its current position within the institution is shifting and reflective of other changing practices within higher education. Leading the list of changing practices is the increased pressure to demonstrate effectiveness and the call for accountability in all areas of the institution, including the area of faculty development. Therefore, centers of development must find ways to measure success and account for faculty application of training.; A review of the literature highlights a paucity of research regarding evaluation of faculty development efforts. Further, faculty as adult learners approach learning new ideas and incorporating these notions into their schema in a particular way. Thus, the theoretical framework for this research used adult learning theories for analysis of how participants understood and incorporated their faculty development experiences.; Four Master's Level institutions served as data gathering locations, selected because of their focus and attention to teaching and learning. In total, 12 faculty members provided data for this study. Faculty members created a concept map to illustrate the connections they made from their development experience and their practice. Ultimately, interviews occurred with each participant to further explicate their understanding of their professional development experience and to provide explanations of the concept maps they created. The questions at the center of this research examined the use of concept mapping as an effective mechanism in which faculty development centers can assess the offered; the goal is to understand the role and impact of professional development as perceived by the faculty participants.; The faculty participants revealed several motivations for participating in the development sessions and the outcomes they obtained from the trainings. The research highlighted five emerging themes. These themes included opportunities for networking, affirmation and reinforcement of their current knowledge base, utility of reflective practice due to the concept mapping, a sense of clarity of using the training topics, and recognition of learning styles.; This study concluded that concept maps can provide additional insights into what faculty found of value in professional development sessions. Teaching and learning center directors could enhance faculty learning outcomes from sessions if they attend to the principles of adult learning and provide faculty with an opportunity to link their previous experience to the new learning. Additionally, the creation of the concept maps by faculty provided them with another learning occasion which allowed them to revisit the training session and tie the topics more deeply into their learning schema and to see utility of the concept mapping process itself as a learning tool for classroom teaching. |
