A wide variety of individual and contextual factors, within and outside institutional control, can affect faculty research performance. These collective factors, the research culture, include policies and practices affecting recruitment, workload, evaluation, collegial communication, leadership, and structure. (MSE)

The current knowledge about what distinguishes productive and vital faculty members from their less dynamic peers is considered, along with additional information needs. Most empirical evidence on faculty productivity concerns only research and publication. Information is inadequate about other forms of faculty achievement and vitality, including…

Diverse opinions are held by workers, union officials, and labor researchers about the importance of the quality of working life to workers. Major issues in this debate focus on the following questions: (1) Is there a workers' movement to improve the quality of working life? (2) Do workers seek meaning and self-fulfillment in their jobs? (3) Can…

Issues pertinent to faculty development are considered in six papers. In "The Work Experience of American College Professors: Some Data and an Argument," Everett Carll Ladd, Jr. provides background information on the teaching, research, and other professional activities of college faculty, based on his research. In "Adult and Career Development:…

Possible ways of conducting research examining the changing context of workplace basic skills policy in the United Kingdom were explored. First, workplace literacy was examined from the perspective of its role in the U.K. government's lifelong learning agenda, and existing research in workplace literacy policy and related studies were reviewed.…

A study examined vocational education research and development (R&D) during the period from 1963 to 1983. Individually funded and government-funded R&D efforts in the following 15 categories were compared: career development and guidance, special populations, students, personnel, instructional techniques, curriculum development, demography,…