On Wednesday, April 23, 1996, Project Pulse conducted a telephone survey of UMass faculty members for the University's Audio Visual (AV) Department. The survey instrument was designed to gather information on faculty use of and need for Audio Visual and Instructional Technology (AVIT) on campus. Pulse interviewers utilized a calling list of all professors, instructors and lecturers who are active employees in academic departments at UMass-Amherst. This list of 922 individuals did not include those with privacy restrictions on their home telephone numbers. The list was drawn from the University's daily personnel file (HRMIS). Interviewers attempted to contact 865 of the individuals on the list. They successfully reached 425, and 342 (80.5%) agreed to be interviewed. The final disposition of the list of course instructors is shown in Table 1, and a demographic profile of survey respondents is shown in Table 2. Sampling error for the survey is approximately plus or minus 5%.
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Table 1: Final Disposition
of the Calling List
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|
N
|
% of Total
|
% of Contacted
|
| In & cooperated |
342
|
37.1
|
80.5
|
| Contacted, but refused |
83
|
9.0
|
19.5
|
| Not contacted |
416
|
45.1
|
|
| Unobtainable phone no. |
15
|
1.6
|
|
| Not eligible |
9
|
1.0
|
|
| Not attempted |
57
|
6.2
|
|
| Totals |
922
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
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Table 2: Demographic
Profile of the Respondents
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|
N
|
%
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| Female |
82
|
24.1
|
| Male |
258
|
75.9
|
| Full professor |
186
|
54.7
|
| Associate professor |
82
|
24.1
|
| Assistant professor |
30
|
8.8
|
| Lecturer |
38
|
11.2
|
| Instructor |
4
|
1.2
|
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Average years at UMass =
16.9
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First, respondents were asked if they taught a class during the 1995-96 academic year. The thirteen respondents who had not were not asked the remainder of the survey questions. Two-thirds of the respondents (66.5%, n=218) said they used the services of the Audio Visual Department during the past two years. Of those who used the AV Department, three-quarters (75.0%, n=150) characterized the staff as "very helpful" and more than half (55.8%, n=116) said they were "very satisfied" with the services available. One-third (33.7%, n=32) of those who have not used the AV Department reported that they use equipment from their department instead. Forty-five percent (n=43) of this group said they don't need or don't use AV equipment.
Forty-five percent (n=133) of those who taught last semester used AVIT equipment from the AV Department, and 62.3% (n=182) reported having used AVIT equipment from some other source. Figure 1 displays the frequency of AVIT equipment use by respondents last semester. As this figure shows, fifty-five percent of the respondents (n=121) report having used AVIT equipment at least once or twice per week.
Respondents were read a list of eight different types of AVIT equipment and were asked whether they had used each type of equipment last semester. As shown in Figure 2, 72.0% (n=162) reported using an overhead projector, 64.3% (n=144) said they used a VCR, and 38.2% used a slide projector.
Respondents who taught in an auditorium during the Spring semester (n=87) were asked about the adequacy of AV equipment in their classrooms. Seventy-four percent (n=68) of these course instructors reported that the AV equipment available in their classroom is either "adequate" or "more than adequate."
Fifty-three percent (n=169) of those surveyed said they would be at least somewhat likely to use laptop computers for classroom presentations if they were made available by the AV department. The most frequently mentioned types of software these respondents would like to see on these computers are statistical software, word-processing, multimedia and internet applications. Sixty-five percent (n=206) of respondents said they would be at least somewhat likely to attend a training workshop on the topic of instructional technology.