The quest for workload equity in nurse faculty teaching.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Academic Workload Studies
• Higher Education Administration

Background:

• Nurse faculty perceptions of teaching workload are often unverified due to opaque institutional policies.
• Lack of transparency in workload policies makes it difficult to corroborate claims of higher teaching loads among nurse faculty compared to other academic departments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate potential inequities in teaching workloads between nurse faculty and their academic counterparts.
• To gather data on teaching workload disparities from the viewpoint of Deans and Directors of Nursing Programs.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive, web-based survey was administered to Nurse Unit Leaders in Spring 2019.
• The study included 224 respondents, with data analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Main Results:

• Nurse Unit Leaders reported that nurse faculty teach larger classes and more courses than their academic peers.
• Respondents cited the complexity of nursing education and a lack of administrator understanding as reasons for these disparities.

Conclusions:

• Transparent workload policies are essential for achieving equitable teaching assignments.
• An organizational culture that values faculty governance is crucial for addressing workload inequities.