By Laurel White
Making sure faculty are trained in the latest industry-based cultural knowledge is better than prioritizing hires of faculty with industry experience, according to a new journal article from a School of Education faculty member.
The article appeared in a recent issue of Innovative Higher Education and was co-authored by Matthew Hora, a professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, and Changhee Lee, a School of Education alumnus and postdoctoral associate at Vanderbilt University.
Hora says the study sought to shed light on a major focus of innovation in higher education — how to improve faculty teaching as it relates to students’ future workplace skills.
“Focus on students’ career readiness and acquisition of workplace-relevant communication and teamwork skills is a hot topic in higher education,” Hora says. “Some contend that such instruction is best achieved through hiring faculty with prior work experience in industry, but little research exists on the topic.”
The mixed methods study gathered survey and interview data from science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM) faculty and used thematic and Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) statistical analysis to explore the relationships among industry experience, various situational factors, and transferable skills instruction.
The analysis found that while most surveyed faculty had industry experience, transferable skills were rarely emphasized, and a variety of factors influence how that experience is translated into teaching. The authors recommend providing faculty development programming focused on industry-based cultural knowledge, rather than basing faculty hiring decisions upon amount of industry experience.
“Clearly, industry experience confers a unique and valuable propensity for real-world transferable skills instruction that we argue should be recognized and capitalized upon by those engaged in pedagogical innovation research and faculty development programming,” the authors wrote. “However, it is most useful to interpret these influences of industry experience not as a case of a superior institutional ‘culture’ (i.e., industry) being exported to a culture that is resistant to career-relevant or skills-oriented teaching (i.e., academia), but instead as a type of individual-level cultural knowledge that can be taught or conveyed to all instructors through a variety of means.”
Broadly, Hora’s research focuses on active learning, organizational change, career development, college internships, and the nature of skills. His work has brought a cultural and critical perspective to debates on two issues dominating the higher education landscape around the world — instructional reform and student employability. His 2018 book, co-authored with Ross Benbow and Amanda Oleson, “Beyond the Skills Gap: Preparing College Students for Life and Work,” won the 2018 AAC&U Frederic W. Ness Award for the best book on liberal education. His research has been featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Teen Vogue, and USA Today.
Read the full Innovative Higher Education article, “Does Industry Experience Influence Transferable Skills Instruction? Implications for Faculty Development and Culture Theory,” here.