| This research sought to ascertain whether differences exist in the levels of student-faculty interactions between students taught by part-time and full-time faculty. Differences in the interactions of students with faculty were examined for four types of content (a) course-related, (b) intellectual, (c) career planning, and (d) informal socializing; for both in-class and out-of-class. The relationship among the students' course-load hours, job- related hours, academic intentions, number of assignments, and the students' levels of interaction were examined. The students' self-reported intellectual growth and the faculty status of instructors were compared also with the levels of student-faculty interactions.;This descriptive, exploratory study used a survey instrument, adapted for this study, to collect cross-sectional data. Introductory economics students were surveyed in the spring of 1994 for both full-time and part-time instructors' classes. The sample selection was a convenience sampling from public community colleges within Texas.;Nine full-time and 5 part-time faculty responded from 10 different colleges providing 254 students' surveys. The data were treated in aggregate form measuring the mean number of responses by interaction category and the mean score of the students' self-perceived intellectual development ranking. Differences in the means were tested between the two faculty samples using nonparametric statistics tests. Nonparametric correlations were computed among students' environmental factors, the level of student-faculty interactions, and the students' intellectual development ranking.;The results of the study showed that there were differences between full-time faculty students and part-time faculty students in the out-of-class levels of interactions. Differences were also found in the contents of in-class interactions between students taught by full-time faculty and students taught by part-time faculty. No differences were found in the means of students' self-perceived intellectual development between full-time faculty and part-time faculty. The correlations among environmental factors and levels of interactions did not provide any concise patterns of relationships. |
