Aging and the Quality of Faculty Job Performance

An aging professoriate is said to be a serious problem pervading colleges and universities. This review examines the claims being made about the performance of older faculty and separates supportable from nonsupportable assertions. It also investigates how age is related to numerous factors affecting faculty performance. We first consider four types of aging theories—biological, psychological, sociological, and social psychological—and then draw inferences for faculty behavior. Then assuming a life course perspective, we focus on the empirical evidence regarding faculty performance, especially in their scholarly role, and test prediction against research evidence. Extant research is criticized, especially with respect to its methodology. Last, an effort is made to sort out aging effects from cohort and historical effects.

[1]  T. Cooper.  Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. , 1976, Military medicine.

[2]  Robert T. Blackburn,et al.  Research Note: Correlates of Faculty Publications. , 1978 .

[3]  E. Ladd,et al.  Technical report : 1975 survey of the American professoriate , 1975 .

[4]  Mark Oromaner,et al.  Professional Age and the Reception of Sociological Publications: A Test of the Zuckerman-Merton Hypothesis , 1977 .

[5]  M. F. Fox.  Publication Productivity among Scientists: A Critical Review , 1983 .

[6]  Richard A. Wanner,et al.  Research Productivity in Academia: A Comparative Study of the Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities. , 1981 .

[7]  Stephen Cole,et al.  Age and Scientific Performance , 1979, American Journal of Sociology.

[8]  Robert T. Blackburn,et al.  Faculty careers: Maturation, demographic, and historical effects , 1985 .

[9]  Harriet Zuckerman,et al.  Age, aging, and age structure in science , 1968 .

[10]  C. W. Adams,et al.  The Age at Which Scientists Do Their Best Work , 1946, Isis.

[11]  Murray A. Straus,et al.  Student Evaluations, Research Productivity, and Eminence of College Faculty * , 1975 .

[12]  Lee H. Bowker,et al.  Improving undergraduate education through faculty development , 1985 .

[13]  N. Shock.  The Biological Basis of Aging , 1977 .

[14]  Barbara F. Reskin,et al.  Academic Sponsorship and Scientists' Careers. , 1979 .

[15]  Frank M. Andrews,et al.  Scientists in Organizations , 1968 .

[16]  Georg Aichholzer,et al.  Individual publication productivity as a social position effect in academic and industrial research units , 1976 .

[17]  R. Linn,et al.  Student Points of View in Ratings of College Instruction , 1973 .

[18]  Nancy Stern,et al.  Age and Achievement in Mathematics: A Case-Study in the Sociology of Science , 1978 .

[19]  R. Ripple,et al.  FLUENCY, FLEXIBILITY, AND ORIGINALITY IN LATER ADULTHOOD , 1981 .

[20]  Lindsey R. Harmon.  PROFILES OF PH.D.'S IN THE SCIENCES, SUMMARY REPORT ON FOLLOW-UP OF DOCTORATE COHORTS, 1935-1960. , 1965 .

[21]  J. Lyons.  Chronological age, professional age, and eminence in psychology. , 1968, The American psychologist.

[22]  Vaughan A Dickson.  The Determinants of Publication Rates of Faculty Members at a Canadian University , 1983 .

[23]  G. Albrecht,et al.  Life-Span Developmental Psychology: Normative Life Crises , 1975 .

[24]  Stephen A. Stumpf,et al.  Career stage as a moderator of performance relationships with facets of job satisfaction and role perceptions , 1981 .

[25]  H. Zuckerman.  Nobel laureates in science: patterns of productivity, collaboration, and authorship. , 1967, American sociological review.

[26]  J. W. Holley.  Tenure and research productivity , 1977 .

[27]  J J Dowd,et al.  Aging as exchange: a preface to theory. , 1975, Journal of gerontology.

[28]  Walter D. Storey,et al.  MAINTAINING PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL COMPETENCE OF THE OLDER ENGINEER: ENGINEERING AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS. , 2022 .

[29]  A. Roe,et al.  Changes in scientific activities with age. , 1965, Science.

[30]  H. Lehman,et al.  Age and Achievement , 1953 .

[31]  H. Lehman.  Age of starting to contribute versus total creative output. , 1946, The Journal of applied psychology.

[32]  J. Everett,et al.  Age, and Midcareer Crisis: An Empirical Study of Academics. , 1981 .

[33]  J. T. Erber.  Age differences in learning and memory on a digit-symbol substitution task. , 1976, Experimental aging research.

[34]  R. Blackburn.  Tenure. Aspects of Job Security on the Changing Campus. , 1972 .

[35]  J. S. Long,et al.  Productivity and Academic Position in the Scientific Career , 1978 .

[36]  F. Whittington,et al.  Trends in the Relative Status of the Aged , 1971 .

[37]  S. Singhal,et al.  Some Observations on the Relationships Between Research Productivity and Student Evaluations of Courses and Teaching. , 1969 .

[38]  R. Kelly,et al.  Role Preferences of Faculty in Different Age Groups and Academic Disciplines. , 1971 .

[39]  H. Lehman.  More About Age and Achievement , 1962 .

[40]  D. Crane.  Scientists at major and minor universities: a study of productivity and recognition. , 1965, American sociological review.

[41]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  Publication and Prestige Mobility of University Departments in Three Scientific Disciplines. , 1976 .

[42]  W. Dennis,et al.  Age and productivity among scientists. , 1956, Science.

[43]  Frank Clemente,et al.  Early Career Determinants of Research Productivity , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.

[44]  Roger G. Baldwin,et al.  The Academic Career as a Developmental Process: Implications for Higher Education. , 1981 .

[45]  Lehman Hc.  Age of starting to contribute versus total creative output. , 1946 .

[46]  W. Dennis,et al.  Creative productivity between the ages of 20 and 80 years. , 1966, Journal of gerontology.

[47]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  The effects of departmental demography on turnover: The case of a university. , 1983 .

[48]  Philip L. Smith.  The stability of teacher performance in the same course over time , 1979 .

[49]  P. Allison,et al.  Productivity Differences Among Scientists: Evidence for Accumulative Advantage , 1974 .

[50]  H. Lehman,et al.  The Chemist's Most Creative Years: The 2500 ablest of the world's chemists attained their maximum production rate at ages 30 through 34. , 1958, Science.

[51]  Janet H. Lawrence.  Faculty age and teaching , 1984 .

[52]  M. Oromaner.  The quality of scientific scholarship and the “graying” of the academic profession: A skeptical view , 1981 .

[53]  Leland J. Axelson,et al.  Differences in Productivity of Doctorates in Sociology , 1959 .

[54]  M. Hildebrand,et al.  Effective University Teaching and its Evaluation. , 1970 .

[55]  J. Rosenbaum,et al.  Career Mobility in a Corporate Hierarchy. , 1986 .

[56]  I. Rosow.  What Is a Cohort and Why , 1978 .

[57]  Denise C. Park,et al.  Handbook of the Psychology of Aging , 1979 .

[58]  G. Brooks,et al.  Serum urate concentrations among university professors; relation to drive, achievement, and leadership. , 1966, JAMA.

[59]  R. Over,et al.  Does research productivity decline with age? , 1982 .

[60]  W B Bean,et al.  Age and Achievement. , 1960 .

[61]  J. Birren,et al.  Variables affecting creative contributions across the adult life span. , 1977, Human development.

[62]  Alan E. Bayer,et al.  Career Age and Research-Professional Activities of Academic Scientists. Tests of Alternative Nonlinear Models and Some Implications for Higher Education Faculty Policies. , 1977 .

[63]  D. Edington,et al.  University faculty and administrator responses to job strains , 1986 .

[64]  Darrell R. Lewis,et al.  Faculty Consulting: Responsibility or Promiscuity? , 1984 .

[65]  Frank Clemente,et al.  Quality of Department of Doctoral Training and Research Productivity. , 1974 .

[66]  K. Schaie.  A GENERAL MODEL FOR THE STUDY OF DEVELOPMENTAL PROBLEMS. , 1965, Psychological bulletin.

[67]  Diana Crane,et al.  Invisible colleges. Diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities , 1972, Medical History.

[68]  Robert T. Blackburn,et al.  Personal Characteristics and Teaching Effectiveness of College Faculty. , 1975 .

[69]  N. Ryder,et al.  Reproduction in the United States, 1965 , 1971 .

[70]  M. W. Riley,et al.  A sociology of age stratification , 1972 .

[71]  P. A. Cohen.  Student Ratings of Instruction and Student Achievement: A Meta-analysis of Multisection Validity Studies , 1981 .

[72]  H. Lehman,et al.  The psychologist's most creative years. , 1966, The American psychologist.

[73]  Bonnie Bourne.  Effects of Aging on Work Satisfaction, Performance and Motivation. , 1982 .

[74]  Earl J. McGrath,et al.  Characteristics of Outstanding College Teachers: Scholarship is the Indispensable Attribute , 1962 .

[75]  D. Hall,et al.  Career development: exploration and planning. , 1978, Annual review of psychology.

[76]  THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENT AND ALUMNI RATINGS OF TEACHERS , 1973 .

[77]  C. Buhler.  The Course Of Human Life , 1968 .

[78]  R. Grant.  Human Aging; a Biological and Behavioral Study. , 1963 .

[79]  G. Maddox.  Aging and Society. Vol. 3, A Sociology of Age Stratification. Matilda White Riley, Marilyn Johnson, and Anne Foner, with contributions by 11 others. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1972. xviii, 652 pp., illus. $20 , 1972 .

[80]  C. Nydegger.  On being caught up in time. , 1981, Human development.

[81]  D. Dannefer.  Adult development and social theory: A paradigmatic reappraisal. , 1984 .

[82]  J. Hendricks,et al.  A Further Look at the Relationship Between Age and Productivity , 1973 .

[83]  Adult Development: Implications for Higher Education. AAHE-ERIC/Higher Education Research Report No. 4, 1980. , 1980 .

[84]  Age and the Life Course , 2022, Aging, Society, and the Life Course.

[85]  R. Davis.  Note on age and productive scholarship of a university faculty. , 1954 .

[86]  Martin Trow,et al.  Research Activity in American Higher Education. , 1974 .

[87]  Roger G. Baldwin,et al.  College faculty : versatile human resources in a period of constraint , 1983 .

[88]  J. A. Walsh,et al.  Pretenure and posttenure productivity trends of academic psychologists. , 1982 .

[89]  James L. Bess.  Integrating Faculty and Student Life Cycles1 , 1973 .

[90]  W. Dennis,et al.  Current scientific activities of psychologists as a function of age. , 1954, Journal of gerontology.

[91]  R. Blackburn,et al.  Faculty self-actualization: Factors affecting career success , 1978 .

[92]  R. Atchley.  Aging, continuity and change , 1983 .

[93]  Gosta Carlsson,et al.  Age, Cohorts and the Generation of Generations , 1970 .

[94]  E. Gross.  The Organizations of Academic Work , 1977, American Political Science Review.

[95]  H. Lehman.  The creative production rates of present versus past generations of scientists. , 1962, Journal of gerontology.

[96]  R. Blackburn.  Career phases and their influence on faculty motivation , 1982 .

[97]  A. Rowe.  Retired academics and research activity. , 1976, Journal of gerontology.

[98]  M. Wittrock.  Handbook of research on teaching , 1986 .

[99]  Frank Costin,et al.  Student Ratings of College Teaching: Reliability, Validity, and Usefulness , 1973 .