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My Educational Research and Ph.D.


(Including Publications)

CONTENTS



I. INTRODUCTION

The references in this section include my areas of educational research specialty as well as my publications available online. These publications represent the focus of my doctoral and post-doctoral research on the condition of education (postsecondary and K-12) and the status of the academic profession in the U.S. and Canada. I have additional research interests in the interdisciplinary studies of sociology and psychology, human relations and counseling, organizational analysis, and policy studies, especially applied to educational institutions.

Much of my concern in the 1990s is with the widening gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" in the U.S. and Canada and its impact on society and educational systems. This gap appears to be related to an increasingly exclusionary process regarding who is accepted and who is able to complete a university education at the undergraduate and the graduate level. As well, it is related to declines in funding for public education and recent calls by public leaders for "educational reform" and declines in career opportunities for aspiring teachers and professors.

At the present time, I am continuing to explore issues of social equity and stratification, public policy toward education in the U.S. and Canada, diversity, multiculturalism, and race relations, interdisciplinary approaches to research on gender studies, the impact of technology in society, and career planning and development of individuals pursuing postsecondary education in the U.S. and Canada.




II. MY DOCTORAL STUDIES

After spending nearly a decade working as an instructional media specialist in postsecondary education (1974-83) I chose to complete my bachelor's degree in the field of sociology. I then pursued my pre-doctoral graduate course work (1984 to 1989) in the fields of sociology, industrial and labor relations, and public administration at the University of Oregon.

From 1985 to 1988 I managed the Graduate Teaching Fellows' Federation, AFT Local 3544, a graduate teaching assistants' union at the University of Oregon for three of those years, then was employed as a special consultant to the Graduate School dean to work with graduate teaching assistant collective bargaining and grievance administration. This background was to lay the groundwork for my interest in the career development and human resource/labor relations issues of university faculty, the subject of my dissertation research.

During my doctoral years (1989-92), I gained experience in two major areas of higher education: institutional planning and policy, and student development. As part of my doctoral dissertation research, I examined a phenomenon afflicting much of American higher education in the 1990s: retrenchment and budgetary crisis. Having experience with academic labor relations under conditions of fiscal austerity, I served as a research consultant to a presidentially-appointed university strategic planning task force on faculty recruitment and retention from 1990-92. I also was an active participant in assessing the University's strategic planning initiatives beginning in 1989 as a continuation of my research on higher education policy and planning issues.

My insights regarding the social, educational, and organizational consquences of downsizing and budget cutbacks have continued to grow over the duration of this decade as these issues have become increasingly predominant in much of American and Canadian higher education institutions. Furthermore, I have been exploring the broader consequences of downsizing within a wide range of professions and middle class occupations.

While participating in the strategic planning process at Oregon, I also worked with the University of Oregon Office of Student Affairs from 1989 to 1991, serving as a coordinator of campus internship services and also working with other departments of student development at the University. This dual experience with the faculty and student-development aspects of higher education enabled me to develop a view of the university as interconnected system--where changes in one area (especially during times of budgetary cutback) could have major impact on other seemingly unrelated areas.



III. PUBLICATION OF MY DISSERTATION IN 1992

My Ph.D. dissertation, entitled The Fiscal Crisis of the American Public Research University and its Impact on Faculty: A Case Study of Factors Influencing Recruitment and Retention of Academic Personnel, was completed in 1992. In this study, I presented the results of my data gathered on the Task Force on Faculty Recruitment and Retention at the University of Oregon. I compared and contrasted results of a campus-wide survey of faculty job satisfaction, recruitment and retention issues with national studies of the career development issues of American professors. Two books that played a central role in my research were Howard Bowen & Jack Schuster, American Professors: A National Resource Imperiled (1986: Oxford University Press) and William Bowen & Julie Ann Sosa, Prospects for Faculty in the Arts & Sciences (1989: Princeton University Press). A summary of my dissertation is also available.



The following article was excerpted from my dissertation and published in the May/June 1993 issue of the Journal of Higher Education and co-authored with Diane M. Dunlap as part of a special issue devoted to the topic of retrenchment in higher education:


For Richer, For Poorer: Faculty Morale in Periods of Austerity and Retrenchment
Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 64, No. 3, May/June 1993

This article was recently cited in the Higher Education Handbook of Theory and Research, Vol. 11 (edited by John C. Smart) by John Creswell, Lester Goodchild, and Paul Turner in an article entitled, "Integrated Qualitative and Quantitative Research: Epistemology, History, and Designs," as an example of a research model in which qualitative and quantitative methods are used "equally and in parallel" (Agathon Press: 1996, pp. 90-136).



IV. MY POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH ON POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

Since completing my dissertation, I have continued to conduct research about a variety of factors shaping higher education in the U.S. and Canada including strategic planning, perspectives and issues of financial management in higher education systems , continuing studies of higher education information resources management, student issues including student affairs and financial aid, student retention and program completion rates, diversity and multiculturalism, and the job satisfaction, career development, recruitment and retention issues of current and aspiring professors in colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada.

Much of my interest in the impact of retrenchment in higher education has focused upon the experiences and outcomes of today's younger scholars in the academy, particularly graduate students and newer faculty. It has been my observation that higher education is undergoing major structural changes in the 1990s which will have a lasting impact on the future of the academic profession. With that fact in mind, I have been examining the condition of the "graduate enterprise" from the standpoint of long-range institutional planning as well as the outcomes of students themselves.



V. USING ELECTRONIC NETWORKS FOR RESEARCH ON GRADUATE STUDENTS

Beginning 1994, I utilized the Internet to assist in collecting data on various aspects of educational research at the postsecondary level. My study of graduate student education, included survey research as well as online interviews with doctoral students.

I gained many valuable insights about the impact of retrenchment on graduate students during my own doctoral years and wanted to see if other students were experiencing similar concerns about their career pathways as a result of the very tight job market in many fields of academia during the 1990s. Late in 1994, I presented with Bobbi Smith a joint U.S./Canadian study of graduate education trends to the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Northwest Association of Research and Planning (PNAIRP) entitled:

"Electrifying Stories: Virtual Research Communities in Graduate Education"

Currently, I am co-listowner with Bobbi Kerlin of the AERA-GSL Graduate Studies Discussion List of the American Educational Research Association on the Internet, an open forum devoted to discussions of a wide range of topics pertaining to graduate education in the U.S. and other countries. I also am co-host with Bobbi of a separate graduate student discussion and support list, GRADTALK. We have a mutual research interest in effective methods for moderating and facilitating online discussion forums. Together, we are collaborating on research about gender issues in the academic and other professions and in society as well as the role of instructional technology in society and in educational institutions.


VI. PUBLICATIONS ON GRADUATE EDUCATION TRENDS

In 1995 I published two papers from a symposium session I chaired at the 1995 annual conference of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco that was entitled "Pursuit of the Ph.D.:'Survival of the Fittest,' or is it Time for a New Approach?" The articles are published by the Education Policy Analysis Archives and are linked below:

"Pursuit of the Ph.D.:'Survival of the Fittest', or is it Time for a New Approach?", by Scott P. Kerlin
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol 3. No. 16, 1995.

"Surviving the Doctoral Years: Critical Perspectives", by Scott P. Kerlin
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 3, No. 17, 1995.

In 1999 Bobbi and I will be publishing an edited collection of articles on doctoral education and the future of the academic profession, tentatively titled Doctoral Dilemmas: Exploring Contemporary Graduate Students' Experiences and the Future of the Academic Profession.


VII. MANAGING INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH AND PLANNING AT THE URBAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE

From 1991 to 1995, I utilized my background in higher education planning and research to organize and manage a newly-created office of institutional research and planning at North Seattle Community College, a member institution of the League for Innovation. Development of the office entailed a variety of tasks related to data management, research design, faculty and administrator advising and consultation, and student development research. During my period at NSCC, I conducted a wide variety of studies about the community college system nationwide and statewide in Washington, as well as at the institutional level. My research thus extended my background in higher education studies to the arena of 2-year institutions, but also sought to build bridges with the 4-year institutions throughout the state.

In developing an office of institutional research, I worked to expand the functions of the institutional research field to cover issues of critical concern to students, faculty, and administrators in academic institutions struggling to manage with scarce resources. Having worked with the strategic planning cycle conducted at the University of Oregon during my doctoral years, I brought this planning perspective to the college level and served as chair or member of a number of campus committees involved with planning and student progress/outcomes assessment. My campus committee roles included chair of the institutional research and vocational program assessment committees, and serving on shared governance, outcomes assessment, and student enrollment services committees. In each case, I provided leadership across the college community on effective ways for utilizing quantitative data to measure and improve program quality and outcomes. My role in teaching campus-wide and departmental workshops and providing one-on-one training for optimal use of computer information systems enabled department and institutional administrators to more effectively utilize data in the program evaluation process.

In 1993 I chaired a campus-wide budget planning committee that was charged with developing a plan for managing existing and new resources. I later served as a member of the Chancellor's Planning Advisory Council (CPAC) for the Seattle Community College District. I also chaired a campus-wide committee on total quality management that developed a campus-wide plan for improving student enrollment services . These experiences were successful examples of collaborative work across the traditional boundaries that separate staff, faculty, students, and administrators.


VIII. RESEARCH ON COMMUNITY COLLEGES

Since my first professional work at the community college level in the early 1980s, I've been interested in issues affecting the progress and degree completion rates of students who begin at 2-year colleges and strive to transfer to 4-year institutions to complete their bachelors' degrees. While serving as research manager at NSCC from 1991 to 1995 my research included surveys of institutional climate, a variety of outcomes assessment measures in conjunction with various departments and the college's outcomes assessment office, creation of annual institutional fact books, studies of race and diversity issues among students and employees, faculty morale and job satisfaction, student development and leadership issues, student retention and program completion rates, and ultimately, institutional planning in periods of budgetary restraint. Additionally, I served as an external doctoral student advisor for Oregon State University's program in community college leadership.

I have presented studies of the community college at state and national conferences and have continued to explore academic research evaluating and examining the structure, functions, and products of community college education. I currently remain active in monitoring published and online research that seeks to assess the effectiveness of the community college in its teaching and learning missions as well as its efforts at helping students to successfully complete their education and transfer to 4-year institutions.


IX. RESEARCH ON DIVERSITY AND MULTICULTURALISM

Though my interest in social research about diversity, multiculturalism, and race relations in the U.S. spans nearly two decades, my first opportunity to conduct applied research about diversity issues in higher education occurred much later. During the 1991-92 academic year (my first year in the capacity of Manager of Research and Planning) I conceived and conducted a year-long multicultural campus climate study at North Seattle Community College in Seattle, Washington. The purpose of this study was to assist the college in critically examining the quality of students' and employees' learning and working experiences on campus with a major focus on diversity (race, gender, class, sexual orientation). A summary report from this survey is available from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service as ERIC Document ED356807. Copies of this report were presented campus-wide at NSCC and utilized in sensitizing administration and faculty members about diversity issues.

Since completing the original climate survey at NSCC, I have expanded my research about diversity issues in higher education to cover faculty and graduate studies concerns. My research at NSCC has been cited as an exemplary project in diversity research from an institutional research perspective in the quarterly journal, New Directions for Institutional Research, Number 81, Spring 1994 issue on "Studying Diversity in Higher Education" edited by Daryl Gl. Smith, Lisa E. Wolf, and Thomas Levitan.

During the years that immediately followed this first climate survey, I served as a state and local consultant to 2-year and 4-year postsecondary institutions on multicultural student research and also led statewide workshops on methods of assessing the campus climate for diversity and gender equality with the goal of improving student retention and educational satisfaction. As part of my consulting work I provided research assistance to the Seattle Coalition for Educational Equity (SCEE), a citywide minority student retention project funded by the Ford Foundation. The goal of SCEE was to identify strategies for improving the retention and program completion rates of students of color as they emerged from the Seattle Public Schools system and entered the Seattle Community College District and ultimately, transferred to 4-year institutions for completion of the baccalaureate degree.

In 1993, I presented a paper entitled "Conducting Institutional Research About Multicultural Issues on Campus: It's More than Black and White" to the annual forum of the Association for Institutional Research as part of a forum session devoted to "best regional papers." It is available from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service as ERIC Document ED356809. This report provides a critique of existing institutional research about diversity issues and proposes an action plan for accomplishing institutional change through rigorous research and analysis. It also contains a 10-page bibliography of references on diversity, climate studies, and two-year colleges.

In 1994, as a result of two years' efforts in collaborative research between the fields of institutional research and outcomes assessment, I published "Assessment and Diversity" with Patricia Britz in the Winter 1994 issue of New Directions for Community Colleges , Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 53-60. Of particular interest in my ongoing inquiry about diversity issues in education and the workplace is the interplay between class and race/ethnicity and its impact on opportunities for social mobility.


X. RESEARCH ON CANADIAN EDUCATION (K-12 & POSTSECONDARY), PUBLIC POLICY, AND ECONOMIC CHANGE

For two years I relocated from the Pacific Northwest to Ontario, Canada with Bobbi Kerlin in 1995 and began conducting research about Canadian social issues, human resources and industrial relations, economic change, and their impact on the K-12 and postsecondary educational systems. I have collected a number of related resources in my Canadian policy studies library.

As a result of the election of the Conservatives into provincial leadership in 1995, Ontario experienced similar budgetary cutbacks in public education and higher education as I have witnessed in my research on retrenchment in U.S. education. During the 1995-96 academic year Ontario's schools, colleges, and universities experienced significant reductions in provincial and federal resource allocations with further anticipated reductions in the 1996-97 year and beyond.

In conducting comparative research on student enrollment and financial aid in Canadian postsecondary education I have recognized rising levels of personal indebtedness of students, widening gaps between "rich" and "poor" universities, and decreased public support for the mission and goals of academic institutions. One online product of my Canadian research is the Ontario Higher Education Fact Sheet I developed for presentation to local university faculty in fall, 1995.

In continuing my research about Ontario educational trends, I've found it useful to monitor information and research reports produced by the Council of Ontario Universities and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF).

XI. RESEARCH AND TEACHING WITH INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND ELECTRONIC NETWORKING

Having served as an instructional media specialist at Northwestern University in Illinois and Lane Community College in Oregon for nearly 10 years (1974-83) prior to my entry into graduate studies and research, I have always been interested in the uses of technology to enhance teaching and research in educational institutions. Upon completing my doctorate in 1992, I began to explore new forms of research in which the computer played a significant role in aiding instruction and communication among students, faculty, and administrators. This interest led to my recent involvement with instructional technology at the college, university, and K-12 educational levels.

My uses of the computer for data-gathering and institutional research began in the mid-1980s, and in 1991 I began to develop computer data systems on an institution-wide level. This included writing and carrying out a variety of computer data programs and presenting the results in various written reports and oral formats. At North Seattle Community College, my functions as Manager of Research included providing consultation to campus faculty, administrators, and staff on effective uses of computers for enhancing their own research and data-collection.

Since 1993, I have been actively utilizing the unique features of the Internet as a resource for online research and communication to enhance teaching and learning. For further discussion of this research, visit my collections of materials under "Internet Research for Skeptics", "Becoming a Better Web Researcher", and "Staying on Top of the Net".

In 1996, I utilized the World Wide Web in delivery of selected research materials for graduate education courses I taught for Lakehead University in Educational Leadership and Quantitative Research Methods. These courses provided graduate students with innovative applications of learning materials on the Web for a variety of research projects and demonstrations.

In 1998, I am further exploring the innovative methods of utilizing the Internet and the Web in teaching environments at both the postsecondary and k-12 education levels. I have developed a resource collection for electronic networking and teaching in postsecondary education in my January Web Links feature and most recently have developed "The Wired Campus", my April Web Links feature, as an additional collection of resources for planning and evaluating computerized information systems in postsecondary education. In April 1998 I will be teaching two courses on the educational uses of Instructional Technology networks for Portland State University in its Continuing Studies program.


XII. DEVELOPING AN EDUCATORS' GUIDE TO THE INTERNET AND WORLD WIDE WEB

During 1996-97, the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training introduced the Technology Incentive Partnership Program, with goals of providing for greater awareness and use of the Internet and the World Wide Web among schools, administrators, school boards, and students.

Bobbi Kerlin and I received a contract to develop an online Internet training guide in 1997 in conjunction with the TIPP to assist schools and teachers with utilizing the Internet and the Web for classroom teaching and student research. The site is entitled Teach 2000: The Educators' Guide to the Internet and World Wide Web. In conjunction with creating this website, we have provided workshops for teachers and administrators in the public schools, focusing on uses of instructional technology for research and classroom work.



XIII. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF ELECTRONIC NETWORKS FOR PROFESSIONAL WORK IN EDUCATIONAL CONSULTING, RESEARCH, AND COUNSELING


The Web and the Internet provide substantial benefit to professionals who need to access information quickly, but one of the greatest challenges to the Web is also one of its greatest strengths: It provides a vast array of information, but much of it is not organized in a meaningful format. This is where it becomes necessary to develop web resource guides to assist researchers and practitioners in expediting their online research. In a variety of ways, my home page has been developed to demonstrate ways that online resources can be organized and presented to a variety of users in different professional and educational settings.

In my teaching and consulting work I have assisted many individuals who are in the early stages of learning about and utilizing the Internet and the World Wide Web within their busy lives. Some have expressed interest in learning more about the variety of resources that are available online, and others desire to learn about the basics of Internet and Web usage, networking, and web page building. In response, I've built Scott's Web Workroom, which offers many tips, guides, and instructions on making sense of this new information resource.
One example of the way I have utilized the web in my professional consulting work with schools in Canada and most recently in Oregon is displayed in my collection of links for educational research, leadership, and planning. In my online work in counseling and human relations I have found it highly useful to include references I've located within my library resource collections as well as my counseling, health & wellness resource collections.



As a major aspect of my continuing research, teaching, and consulting work in the Portland, Oregon region on the uses of electronic technology in education and in other types of organizations, I am examining the unique ways by which electronically-available information resources can assist schools and other organizations with limited resources in many areas of planning, leadership, decision-making, and networking of professionals from diverse locations and organizations.


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