Ignis Fatuus Effect of Faculty Category: Is the Tenure Versus Non-Tenure Debate Meaningful to Students’ Course Experiences?

The American professoriate is shifting its majority makeup from tenure track to non-tenure track faculty members. Less known, though, is what the implications of this shift are for students’ course experiences. We sought to examine the extent to which the teaching practices, with regard to academic rigor and cognitively responsive teaching, differ between faculty category using observational measures of teaching in the classroom. We found that broad categorizations of faculty may not be meaningful unless they are examined in particular contexts, such as discipline and class size.