Research On The Current Situation Of Professionalization Of Faculty Developer In China

As designers,executors and important mentors of faculty development activities,the quality of faculty developer plays a vital role in their services that is provided to the teachers.At present,The literature on faculty developer is revolved around developed countries like America and Canada,while little research is focused on the professionalization of Chinese faculty developer.Therefore,this study will not only fills the void of research on Chinese faculty developer but also enriches the cases study of faculty developer.Meanwhile,this study shows the current situation of Chinese faculty developer,it will provide valuable suggestions for the professionalization of Chinese faculty developer.This study aims to develop an understanding of the current situation of Chinese faculty developer through the perspective of faculty development and specialization.Literature analysis,questionnaire surveys and interviews are used in this study.And learn from the experience of professionalization of American faculty developer to analysis the present role,professional level and trouble of domestic faculty developer.To achieve the state purpose of the study,two research questions are addressed:What is the current status,occupational threshold,professional literacy and professional promotion of Chinese faculty developer?How to realize the professionalization of Chinese faculty developer?We conducted a questionnaire survey of 111 full-time teachers and interview 6 faculty developers in Xiamen University.With the help of software SPSS22.0,we drew conclusion in three dimensions:identity and roles,professional literacy and professionalization measures.Based on all analysis,this study concluded that:(1)Cause the faculty development is at early stage,the professional status of faculty developer in our country isn’t recognized.Faculty development isn’t considered as academic work,most of the faculty developers have more than two titles while faculty developer is the least important one.Faculty developer in China lacks the benefits such as forfessional promotion,compensation and research funding.(2)The background of faculty developer in China is complex and diverse which almost covers all the subjects.Most people become faculty developer due to their rich experience in teaching while others by engaging in faculty development research.Some of faculty developer carry on tasks by own experience and there is a lack of systematic learning and traing which results the program can’t meet the need of teacher.(3)The background of full-time teachers will influence their views on faculty developer.Teachers who are familiar with faculty development recognize the professional of faculty developer than others;Young teachers are more interested in improving their teaching ability than elder ones;Teachers who are focus on teaching place more emphasis on the teaching ability of faculty developers;Female teachers emphasize the professional skills of faculty developers more than male teachers.(4)The professional organization focus on faculty developer needed to be set up.Faculty developer mainly rely on school-level center to carry out work,and there is a lack of the national organizaticon for faculty developer.With the development of faculty development,more and more scholars should notice the importance of faculty developer and it is time to set up progessional organization for faculty developer.(5)It seems that the programs which is launched are not highly targeted and effective.Most program lack long-term sustainability which weaken the effect of program To guarantee the quality of program is the most concern for faculty developers.The major contributions of this study are as follows:this thesis reviews foreign and domestic research on faculty developer shows the development of foreign faculty developer and the deficiency of domestic researchs,and provides reference for domestic research on faculty developer;based on the survey of full-time teachers and faculty developers in Xiamen University will deepen people’s understanding of the professionalization of Chinese faculty developer.