Research Journal of Management Sciences _____________________________________________ISSN 2319–1171 Vol. 2(11), 25-28, November (2013) Res. J. Management Sci. International Science Congress Association 25 Comparison of Faculty Engagement Factors between Arts and Science and Engineering and Technology Institutions Juliet Gladies J. and Kennedy Vijila2 RVS Institute of Management Studies and Research Sulur, Coimbatore-641 402, Tamilnadu, INDIA KCT B-School, Coimbatore- 641 049, Tamilnadu, INDIAAvailable online at: www.isca.in, www.isca.me Received 29th September 2013, revised 11th October 2013, accepted 30th October 2013 AbstractThe higher education Institutions needs to attract and retain faculty who are qualified and willing to take on new task and responsibility. Institutions are now keen in engaging the faculty in all areas other than teaching. A survey on 662 faculty members representing 10% of the population was done with stratified sampling method with a response rate of 77.8% and with Cronbach Alpha of 0.9. From the study it was found that the faculty engagement between Arts and Science and Engineering and Technology factors differ with regard to type of institution, nature of institution, age and current position. The challenge of today’s Higher Education Institutions is to ensure that its members of the faculty are engaged through innovative management practices. Keywords: Faculty Engagement. Introduction In today’s changing scenario having engaged employees is considered to be a competitive advantage. The goal of the Higher Education Institutions is to ensure optimal utilization of its people i.e. the members of faculty. It is the duty of the institutions to develop the faculty members professionally. Literature review: Education is the base to bring about the changes in the society. The educational institutions need to develop skilled professionals for the society. Kaur and Bhalla studied the perceptions of faculty members towards college management and student related factors. It was found that the colleges were ranked for three factors namely “teaching environment”, “research environment” and “educational material”. It was also observed that only few factors showed significant difference like “infrastructure” with “extracurricular activities” and “faculty motivation” in case of “education of students”. Berliner and David assert that a high quality faculty should show evidence of both good and effective teaching. He suggested that “good teaching is made up of three components: logical acts (defining, demonstrating, modelling, etc.), psychological acts (caring motivating, encouraging, rewarding, punishing, etc.), and moral acts (showing honesty, tolerance, compassion, respect, etc.)”. University business faculty members are evaluated and rewarded for their performance in the three areas of teaching, research, and service. Professors may also feel more competent or comfortable in one work area and, as a result, choose to concentrate their work efforts on teaching or research. Wellins and Concelman define employee engagement as “the illusive force that motivates employees to higher levels of performance”. Faculty pursuing their research work actively are perceived to be more passionate about what they teach which further creates a high sense of excitement and engagement among students. Lindsay, Breen, and Jenkins also found that the perception of college students’ about their faculty member’s knowledge, credibility and enthusiasm were enhanced when faculty members involve themselves in quality research work. According to McKeachie’s research, teachers were contented when they get an opportunity to learn new skills and when they are appreciated by the peers. The extrinsic and intrinsic factors needs to be available based on the individual needs of the employees to increase their job satisfaction10. According to Rowley “salary, promotion or financial rewards” are not of much value for the faculty members who initially receive a consolidated pay. Some of the educational institutions encourage their faculty members to earn financial rewards, bonuses and incentives. Members of the faculty will be able to perform better when they have a lesser work load and would concentrate on student development11. Reed, Bergemann and Olson discussed that the faculty members perceive to have autonomy in taking decisions12. Objective: To compare the factors of Faculty Engagement between the Arts and Science and Engineering and Technology Institutions. Research Journal of Management Sciences _________________________________________________________ISSN 2319–1171Vol. 2(11), 25-28, November (2013) Res. J. Management Sci.International Science Congress Association 26 Methodology Data was collected from 662 faculty members working in educational institutions affiliated to Bharathiar University and Anna University in Coimbatore. The sample was extracted randomly from 10% of the population. The sampling method used for the study is Stratified Random Sampling. Data was collected through a validated instrument. The instrument was distributed to 850 faculty members working in HEI in Coimbatore out of which 700 were received and only 662 useable responses were taken indicating a response rate of 77.8%. The statistical tools used for the study are percentage analysis and ANOVA. The instrument was measured with a five point Likert Scale such as Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree. Reliability was tested on the data collected using Cronbach Alpha test and the overall reliability for Faculty Engagement was found to be 0.926. Results and Discussion The study is based on the faculty members who are currently working in the Arts and Science and Engineering and Technology Institutions. Table-1 Current Position of the faculty members S. No Designation Frequency Percentage 1. HOD 51 7.7 2. Professor 18 2.7 3. Associate Professor 59 8.9 4. Assistant Professor 500 75.5 5. Lecturer 34 5.1 Total 662 100 From Table-1, it was found that majority i.e. 75.5% of the faculty members were from Assistant Professor Category, 8.9% in the Associate Professor category and 7.7% of them were heading the department. As per the legislations it is common that the Professor to Assistant Professor Ratio should be 1:5. Hence majority of the people surveyed were working currently in the Assistant Professor category in various institutions in Coimbatore. Faculty Engagement Factors: The items for faculty engagement construct in this study were adapted from Alan’s “Antecedents and consequences of Employee Engagement”13. According to Kahn14 and Maslach et.al15 model, the antecedents might vary for job and organization engagement. Hence the two dimensions under the construct faculty engagement were classified as Job Engagement and Institution Engagement. As the researcher focuses on measuring the engagement of the faculty members working in Higher Education Institutions, the Institution here focuses on the educational institutions. Comparison of Faculty Engagement among faculty members working in Arts and Science and Engineering Technology Institutions: A comparison study was done to identify the difference of Faculty Engagement among faculty members working in Arts and Science and Engineering Technology Institutions. The job engagement and Institutional engagement factors of Faculty Engagement was compared with various demographic factors such as type of institution, nature of institution, age, marital status, educational qualification, income and current position. The statistical tool namely Anova was applied to determine whether there was any significant difference among the two groups viz. faculty members working in Bharathiar University and members of faculty working in Anna University affiliated institutions. The factors which have the significant values for their respective frequency which were less than 0.05 were said to be significantly different between the two groups. The details of comparison of faculty engagement factors between the faculty members working in Arts and Science and Engineering Technology Institutions are mentioned in Table-2 and Table-3. The Frequency and the Significance are abbreviated as F and Sig in table-2 and table-3. Table-2 ANOVA of Faculty Engagement between two groups with respect to type of institution, nature of institution, gender and age S. No Variables Type of institution Nature of institution Gender Age F Sig F Sig F Sig F Sig 1 Interested in job 0.238 0.626 0.497 0.481 2.693 0.101 0.740 0.870 2 Willing for extra effort 0.011 0.916 0.029 0.864 0.289 0.591 0.950 0.560 3 Improving job 0.020 0.887 1.872 0.172 1.034 0.310 1.660 0.010 4 Additional roles 0.109 0.741 2.184 0.140 0.033 0.856 1.310 0.110 5 Belief in work 0.082 0.775 1.485 0.223 2.209 0.138 1.350 0.080 6 Recognition in job 1.004 0.317 0.025 0.873 0.078 0.781 0.850 0.730 7 Exciting things in job 0.434 0.510 0.010 0.921 0.337 0.562 0.870 0.700 8 Deviant behaviour 3.272 0.071 1.101 0.294 0.686 0.408 0.970 0.520 9 Member excites me 0.939 0.333 0.621 0.431 0.656 0.418 1.240 0.160 10 Proud about my institution 5.154 0.024 0.030 0.862 0.003 0.955 0.870 0.690 11 Job satisfaction 0.614 0.433 5.507 0.019 1.267 0.261 0.780 0.820 Research Journal of Management Sciences _________________________________________________________ISSN 2319–1171Vol. 2(11), 25-28, November (2013) Res. J. Management Sci.International Science Congress Association 27 Table-3 ANOVA of Faculty Engagement between two groups with respect to marital status, educational qualification, income and current position S. No Variables Marital Status Educational Qualification Income Current Position F Sig F Sig F Sig F Sig 1 Interested in job 0.019 0.900 0.391 0.800 0.271 0.900 1.379 0.200 2 Willing for extra effort 1.468 0.200 1.795 0.100 0.201 1.000 1.961 0.100 3 Improving job 0.114 0.700 1.699 0.200 1.967 0.100 2.017 0.100 4 Additional roles 0.679 0.400 2.297 0.100 1.134 0.300 2.489 0.000 5 Belief in work 1.151 0.300 0.813 0.500 1.553 0.200 2.195 0.100 6 Recognition in job 1.274 0.300 0.946 0.400 1.837 0.100 0.575 0.700 7 Exciting things in job 0.729 0.400 1.308 0.300 0.772 0.600 0.918 0.500 8 Deviant behaviour 0.002 1.000 0.125 0.900 0.683 0.600 1.010 0.400 9 Member excites me 0.000 1.000 1.087 0.400 0.743 0.600 1.098 0.400 10 Proud about my institution 0.374 0.500 0.529 0.700 1.845 0.100 1.653 0.200 11 Job satisfaction 0.213 0.600 0.789 0.500 0.665 0.700 3.201 0.000 From table- 2 and table-3 we can infer that there is no significant difference between the two groups namely Arts and Science and Engineering and Technology institutions with regard to gender, marital status, educational qualification and income. When compared as a whole for the construct faculty engagement, there is significant difference among the two groups for the demographic factors type of institution, nature of institution, age and current position. With regard to type of institution, the factor “I am proud to talk about my institution to others” (F=5.154, p=0.024) has significant difference. The factor “Job Satisfaction” (F=5.507, p=0.019) has significant difference in the nature of institutionwhich is found in table-2. From table-3 we can understand that the factor “I constantly look for ways to improve my job” has significant difference in the demographic factor age. The factors like “I am willing to take up additional roles in my job” (F=2.489, p=0.000) and Job Satisfaction (F=3.201, p=0.000) have significant difference with regard to the demographic factor current position. Conclusion Faculty members with high levels of engagement appear to enjoy positive interactions with their counterparts. From the study it was found that the faculty engagement factors differ with regard to type of institution, nature of institution, age and current position. In the challenging environment of Higher Education Institutions, the management and the educational institutions need to ensure that its members of the faculty are engaged through innovative management practices. Happy and engaged faculty members are better equipped to handle various stressful conditions and are much more likely to have a conducive relationship with their superiors, feel more valued by their institutions and are more satisfied with their lives. 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