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Some research has found that adjuncts are better teachers:

The Adjunct Advantage
By Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Education
September 9, 2013


Here is the abstract of the paper:

Are Tenure Track Professors Better Teachers?
David N. Figlio, Morton O. Schapiro, Kevin B. Soter
NBER Working Paper No. 19406
Issued in September 2013
This study makes use of detailed student-level data from eight cohorts of first-year students at Northwestern University to investigate the relative effects of tenure track/tenured versus non-tenure line faculty on student learning. We focus on classes taken during a student’s first term at Northwestern, and employ a unique identification strategy in which we control for both student-level fixed effects and next-class-taken fixed effects to measure the degree to which non-tenure line faculty contribute more or less to lasting student learning than do other faculty. We find consistent evidence that students learn relatively more from non-tenure line professors in their introductory courses. These differences are present across a wide variety of subject areas, and are particularly pronounced for Northwestern’s average students and less-qualified students.

Mostly, at 17-19yo, they ARE impressed with all of those shiny things.

This particular line of reasoning was TOTALLY lost on DD's friends, and mostly upon their parents as well. {shrug}

I'm also thinking, no disrespect intended to the authors of that study, that this is a pretty isolated and narrow examination of the problem presented by adjuncts, taken in full context.

Adjuncts do NOT add the same value to an institution in the context of: expert student advising via established network of local public/private sector ties, knowledge of a variety of graduate and professional school requirements/preferences/etc, service within the academic community over a long period of time (cross-disciplinary ties forged via committee work, research, etc), and finally-- a stable lab/office where faculty are AVAILABLE to students who walk in looking for answers or help.

I know all of that to be so. Period, full stop. It's also true that the impact of adjunct vs. non-adjunct is MOSTLY felt at the sophomore level and beyond-- and quite probably (IMO) in retention rates. I notice that retention rates didn't make that study.

How do I explain that study? Simple-- fixed term and adjunct faculty are often younger, more energetic, and more experimental than their older colleagues with tenure. They take more risks pedagogically-- and they WORK in a more labor-intensive fashion, at least at first. It's a more useful comparison to look at adjuncts in their first 3-5 years in the classroom with tenure-track (but obviously UNTENURED) faculty at a variety of institutions during that same time-frame in their careers. I'm guessing that the classroom experiences are roughly equivalent there. What differs is the stuff OUTSIDE of class.

It's a problem that the unwary observers may not fully appreciate, but not having those fresh young faces on university committees and in labs and offices-- as residents, not nomads-- profoundly changes a university. It does. Faculty know it-- and have been fighting this sea change for over a decade, but they are losing the war.

To add to HK's analysis of that study, it would also seem to me that the study is more revealing of the flaws of heaping research responsibilities on tenured professors on top of their full-time gigs, if the poverty-waged temp (with its own obvious flaws) is performing better in entry level classes. Certainly, there's room for improvement on the tenured model, as full-time, properly-compensated, tenured professors can do a far better job of teaching if they're allowed to concentrate on that in lieu of chasing scarce research dollars.

Conclusion: the adjunct model is suitable for colleges that cater to average students and less-qualified students.

I don't even believe that. Seriously. Students who need a bit of hand-holding are simply falling through the cracks with an adjunct model. Adjuncts can't afford the extra time, and students often can't track them down outside of class at all.

That does not characterize Northwestern, where the study was done:

Test Scores -- 25th / 75th Percentile
SAT Critical Reading: 680 / 760
SAT Math: 700 / 780
SAT Writing: 680 / 770

Hmmm...because there are tons of students at Northwestern who have weak academic preparation. I think this study needs to be extended to more "average" colleges to make any conclusions. A school that accepts only 15% of applicants, and has many more qualified applicants than seats - don't see how they can draw that conclusion (though I did not read the entire study).

I think adjuncts are often better teachers than professors in areas that need real world experience. Some guy who has spent all of his time in academia is better qualified to speak about the business world than a former CEO - I don't think so.

Students don't track down teachers outside of class at all any more. They email, but that's all.

The problem with adjuncts is that with crap pay and no job security, they teach to the lowest possible standard. They need students to pass, so they need to pass students. The stories I could share of incredibly low standards could make your hair stand on end. If universities want to save money they should stick to having a huge lecture, then small tutorial/recitation groups to discuss assigned and spontaneous questions. By having actual discussions they reduce the time needed for endless quizzes and grading, by having one lecturer they reduce the amount of duplicated paid work in writing the lectures.

I can see that adjuncts could offer an advantage to students because their job is to teach. Ergo, they presumably devote their work-related thinking to teaching. Tenure-track faculty sometimes see teaching as a necessary evil and so don't necessarily put a lot of effort into it. However, the second part of my statement isn't always the case and the first part can be offset by the exhaustion incurred by commuting two or three times a day and the stress of not having a real job.

I was an adjunct for 2-3 years at a community college. It started as a favor for a tenured friend there. Some of the adjuncts were teaching because their kids had started school and they wanted to get back into the labor market. Others were on the adjunct treadmill, and things were hard for them. One member of the former group refused to be on campus if she wasn't actively teaching, meaning next to no office hours. Another one didn't have much time because he taught at three colleges (that I knew of). There were also faculty members who were unenthusiastic about working with students outside of class, but their job descriptions mandated office hours, so they had no choice.

Regardless of what happens to the students, the adjunct model is a raw deal for the adjuncts themselves. HK made a good point about them also not knowing the college and therefore not being able to advise students. And Dude is right about the research responsibilities. I agree with the people who say the two jobs should be separated. These days, though, with universities being run like businesses, that won't happen (unless the people writing checks to the universities start opting out).

ETA: Yes, students absolutely track down their professors after class. The people like my friend, who would spend time helping them, were ALWAYS surrounded by students. If students know they're available, they go to them. Which brings us back to the adjunct treadmill....

TBH, I'm not sure what "less-qualified" means.

Sure, it's easy to make an assumption that students with sky-high GPAs and lots of extracurricular activities are "more qualified," but I'm not so sure that's true. Personally, I don't think that industrial metrics apply well in this situation. Granted, it's more likely that someone with a C- average and SAT scores <500 won't be prepared, but given that one wrong question can knock an SAT score down by 20 or 30 points, and given that you can only get something like 4 wrong on the math section to get a 700, it isn't clear to me that we can honestly discriminate between high scores (say, 650+). The same can be said for grades, given how inflated they are. So even if you trust the industrial metrics, their distribution seems to have been squished, making it difficult to tease out much meaningful information from the top chunk.

Then there is the helicoptering and and the hyper-prepping. By "prepping," I mean forced extracurriculars and forced, well, everything. Prepping may get students lots of iridescent Great job! stickers, but if it's thrust upon them, much of it means nothing. IMO, if the desire isn't coming from WITHIN the student, the student is at high risk of falling apart when he decides he's had enough.

Certainly, I've been hearing and reading a lot of complaints from professors about the A+++ students with garlands and iridescent stickers on their diplomas. Specifically, they're characterized as being LESS prepared than students of previous years who had lower (but still solidly high) GPAs --- but perhaps more internal motivation.