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Analyzing the Impact of E-mail Use on Student-Faculty Interactions in Higher Education Programs
By Lamont A. Flowers
Assistant Professor
Department of Educational Leadership, Policy and Foundations
Associate Director
Institute of Higher Education
University of Florida
lflowers@edu15.coe.ufl.edu
Posted: November, 2004 Student Affairs Online, vol. 5 no. 4 - Fall 2004
According to a national study entitled, Teaching with Technology: Use of Telecommunications by Postsecondary Instructional Faculty and Staff in Fall 1998 (Warburton, Chen, & Bradburn, 2002), part-time and full-time instructional faculty who used e-mail to communicate with students reported that approximately 30% of the students in their classes used e-mail to communicate with them during the 1998 fall term. These data, while somewhat dated, suggest that e-mail plays a moderately important role in the learning process in college. Moreover, the amount of research conducted during the past five years also attests to the growing importance of e-mail use for pedagogical and advising purposes (Lowry, Koneman, Osman-Jouchoux, & Wilson, 1994; Partee, 1996; Poling, 1994; Romiszowski & de Haas, 1989). For example, Gatz and Hirt (2000) investigated the use of e-mail on students' academic and social integration in college. Based on an analysis of the frequency and content of the e-mail communication of the participants in their study they found that, despite the frequency with which students communicated via e-mail, the students' e-mail communications contributed very little to promoting academic and social integration in college. In contrast, other studies and scholarly publications suggest that e-mail use has instructive value when it is used to enhance a learning environment (Brotherton, 2001; Partee, 1996; Poling, 1994; Trathen & Moorman, 2001). While this particular finding is not totally consistent in the research literature (Miller, 2001), it is reasonable to conclude that e-mail will continue to be used with greater frequency in college classrooms (Flowers, Pascarella, & Pierson, 2000) and student affairs offices to support student-student interactions, student-faculty interactions, as well as student-student affairs professional interactions. Thus, as the number of college students and university personnel who use e-mail increases, faculty as well as student affairs professionals must continue to probe the
relationship between the utilization of this form of computer-mediated communication and student learning and development.
Because the present study is also concerned with student-faculty interaction, a brief discussion of this research literature base is warranted. Student-faculty interactions in graduate school and the mentoring that may result from such interactions has been studied extensively in the research literature. Broadly defined, student-faculty interaction in graduate school involves contact between a faculty member and graduate student and includes conversations and discussions related to class work and related assignments, job search and professional development issues, as well as informal and social exchanges of information (Kartje, 1996; Tenenbaum, Crosby, & Gliner, 2001; Waldeck, Orrego, Plax, & Kearney, 1997). Overall, this body of research indicates that graduate students who engage in this type of student-faculty interaction (e.g., mentoring) are better off than graduate students who do not have these types of experiences in graduate school (Davidson & Foster-Johnson, 2001; Gaia, Corts, Tatum, & Allen, 2003; Larke, Patitu, Webb-Johnson, & Young-Hawkins, 1999). Research examining the effects of student-faculty interaction for undergraduate students also indicates that student-faculty interactions promote and enhance several positive educational and social outcomes for students (Chickering & Reisser, 1993; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991).
Despite the significance of exploring e-mail use and student-faculty interactions, this issue has not yet been explored for higher education faculty and/or higher education graduate students. As such, the purpose of this research note was to examine the extent to which higher education faculty used e-mail to communicate with their students. Additionally, this study sought to provide data pertaining to the amount of time that higher education faculty spends providing individual instruction to graduate students to determine if higher education faculty were more likely to communicate via e-mail rather than to meet face-to-face with students.
Method
Data from the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99) were used in the present study because the NSOPF:99 contain comprehensive data on a representative sample of college faculty in the United States (Abraham et al., 2002). The institutional data in NSOPF:99 consists of more than 800 institutions (Abraham et al., 2002). The NSOPF:99 faculty and staff sample represents approximately 1 million college faculty (Abraham et al., 2002). Among all college faculty, 57% were employed on a full-time basis and 43% were employed on a part-time basis (Zimbler, 2001). This study was based on data from full-time instructional faculty who selected higher education as their principal field or discipline of teaching. Employing the weighted NSOPF:99 sample, this study was based on approximately 585 higher education faculty who used e-mail to communicate with students in their classes (422 higher education faculty from public institutions and 163 higher education faculty from private institutions).
Results
According to Table 1, 71% of higher education faculty at public institutions used e-mail to communicate with students in their classes during the 1998 fall term. Conversely, approximately 60% of higher education faculty at private institutions used e-mail to communicate with their students in 1998. Data from Table 2 showed that higher education faculty at public institutions spent approximately three hours per week responding to e-mail during the 1998 fall term while higher education faculty at private institutions spent nearly four hours per week responding to e-mail. Descriptive statistics from Table 2 also indicated the extent to which e-mail use by higher education faculty impacted hours spent providing individual instruction to graduate students and hours spent advising students. More specifically, the data suggested that higher education faculty at private institutions spent more time than higher education faculty at public institutions did providing individual instruction to graduate students. Moreover, data from Table 2 revealed that higher education faculty at private institutions were also more likely than higher education faculty at public institutions to spend time with students they were assigned to advise.
Table 1
Percentage of Higher Education Faculty Who Used E-mail, by Institutional Type: Fall 1998
|
Institutional Type |
Used E-mail to Communicate With Students |
|
Public |
71 |
|
Private |
60 |
Note. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99).
Table 2
Among Higher Education Faculty Who Used E-mail, Average Hours per Week Spent Responding to Student E-mail, Average Contact Hours per Week Spent Providing Individual Instruction to Graduate Students, and Average Contact Hours Spent With Advisees, by Institutional Type: Fall 1998
|
Institutional Type |
Hours Responding to E-mail |
Contact Hours Providing Individual Instruction |
Contact Hours With Advisees |
|
Public |
3.14 |
4.46 |
2.17 |
|
Private |
3.53 |
5.06 |
4.39 |
Note. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:99).
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore, using descriptive statistics, how many hours per week higher education faculty used e-mail to communicate with students. This brief study also sought to examine data showing how much time higher education faculty spent providing individual instruction to students. A primary rationale for highlighting e-mail use and student-faculty interactions was to obtain preliminary data on the effects of e-mail use in higher education graduate programs. Toward this end, the data showed that higher education faculty at private institutions spent more time providing individual instruction to graduate students than they did responding to student e-mail. Findings also indicated that higher education faculty at private institutions spent more time advising students than they did responding to e-mail. For higher education faculty at public institutions, the study showed that they spent more time providing individual instruction to graduate students than they did responding to e-mail. In terms of advising, however, the study suggested that higher education faculty at public institutions were more likely to spend time responding to student e-mail than they did advising students.
Taken as a whole, data from this study suggests that higher education faculty at private institutions spend more time engaging in face-to-face communications with students than they do responding to student e-mails. In contrast, while higher education faculty at public institutions reported spending more time providing individual instruction to graduate students than responding to e-mail; they reported spending less time advising students than they did responding to e-mail. Overall, these finding are noteworthy considering the importance of student-faculty contact particularly at the graduate level. However, it is clear from this exploratory study that additional research investigating this issue is needed to better understand how e-mail is being used by higher education faculty and to further estimate the extent to which e-mail use impacts student-faculty interactions and students' educational outcomes in higher education graduation preparation programs.
References
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