US Instructor Survey 2024

Preface

As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, the landscape of higher education continues to evolve. Ithaka S+R’s 2024 US Instructor Survey sheds light on how college instructors are adapting, with a renewed focus on diverse teaching and learning modalities. Adapted from the US Faculty Survey we have fielded regularly since 2000, this iteration offers a valuable snapshot of the shifting dynamics in college teaching. In 2025, we will conduct a survey focused on faculty research. As in previous faculty surveys, in this cycle we explored key themes such as the role of libraries, open educational resources (OERs), and instructional support services, and also delved into emerging trends within the academy. Already, the survey has informed two topical reports: one exploring generative AI and instructional practices and another examining perceptions of academic freedom in instruction.^[1]

The survey shows that instructors are confident in their ability to develop courses and lesson plans. Approximately half are eager to adopt new pedagogies that leverage technology, such as flipped classrooms and blended learning models. Many instructors are integrating instructional videos and publisher-provided modules into their courses.

In a significant trend, half of the respondents reported using OERs as replacements for traditional course materials, although fewer than 20 percent create their own. This reflects a commitment to providing low-cost or no-cost course materials, thereby reducing financial barriers and promoting equitable access to education.

Instructors also recognize libraries as crucial partners in their teaching mission. Libraries are not just repositories of scholarly resources; they also play a pivotal role in student success by offering informal learning environments and access to technological resources such as computer labs, digital tools, and study spaces that enhance student engagement and learning.

Further, instructors often seek support from their institutions for IT-related needs, software support, and the enhancement of pedagogical practices. They value these areas of support highly, indicating that continued investment is essential for effective teaching and instruction. Such institutional backing is critical in helping instructors integrate technology into their teaching and address the diverse needs of their students.

The survey also highlights the importance instructors place on receiving support to examine teaching practices that may introduce bias and to diversify course materials. While half of the instructors currently receive support in diversifying content, 63 percent regard this support as highly valuable. This underscores the need for resources and training to help instructors develop inclusive and representative curricula that reflect the diverse backgrounds and experiences of their students.

The survey findings emphasize the changing role of instructors in a post-pandemic educational environment and highlight key areas where institutions and the organizations that support them may want to focus their attention. These include examining current services available to support faculty teaching, the materials and tools used for instruction, and identifying areas where further institutional support could be beneficial.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts about the findings and exploring their implications together.

Best,

Mark McBride
Director, Libraries, Scholarly Communication, and Museums
Ithaka S+R

Introduction

The 2024 US Instructor Survey examines the instructional needs and practices of faculty at four-year colleges and universities across the United States. This new iteration of our longstanding US Faculty Survey is designed to support a variety of stakeholders and decision makers in higher education by providing insight into faculty instructional needs, practices, and perspectives across different institution types, disciplines, and positions or titles.^[2]

To better understand instructors’ evolving needs, this survey not only includes relevant questions from earlier versions of the US Faculty Survey—such as questions about the role of the library, open educational resources (OERs), and instructional support services—but also takes a deep dive into current trends and key topics, including what services are available to support faculty teaching, the materials and tools used for teaching, and where more institutional support would be valuable. Additionally, the survey includes two thematic areas of focus—one on faculty use and perceptions of generative AI tools and one on perceptions on academic freedom and censorship. Reports covering these sections were published earlier this year.^[3]

In this report, we share our findings from the core questionnaire on instructional practices.

Key Findings

• While instructors view the library’s most important role as a buyer of scholarly resources needed for teaching and instruction, they also recognize the library’s role in supporting student success. This includes the library’s role in providing an informal learning environment as well as access to technological resources that aid student learning.
• The majority of instructors are confident in their ability to develop their own courses and lesson plans, and half of instructors would like to adopt new pedagogies or approaches that take advantage of technology. Instructors often use instructional videos and publisher-provided modules to support learning in their classrooms.
• Half of instructors are using open educational resources (OERs) such as textbooks and video lectures in their classes, but less than 20 percent are creating their own. The preference given to using OERs in the classroom aligns with instructors’ commitment to assigning course materials at either low or no cost to the student.
• The majority of instructors turn to their college or university for assistance with IT-related needs or software support, supporting students with non-curricular needs, and with improving their pedagogical practices. Instructors also regard support in these three areas as very valuable to their teaching and instruction, suggesting continued support is worthwhile.
• Instructors place notable value on receiving instructional support when examining teaching practices that may introduce bias as well as support in diversifying course materials. While half of instructors currently receive support in diversifying their course materials, 63 percent regard this type of support as highly valuable.

Methodology

The 2024 US Instructor Survey was designed to support a variety of stakeholders and decision makers at postsecondary institutions nationally by providing insight into faculty instructional needs, perceptions, and practices across different institution types and disciplines.^[4] This survey includes relevant questions from the previous cycles of the US Faculty Survey, but has also been updated with new questions to better reflect the more immediate instructional needs regarding emerging technologies and critical trends across higher education.

The population for this survey was faculty members and instructors at four-year colleges and universities across the United States that offer a bachelor’s degree or higher. We surveyed faculty members across key disciplines, including in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, area studies, and medicine. While the population overall remains the same from our previous US Faculty Survey, due to substantial instrument revisions, findings below report on longitudinal components only where survey conditions and questions were carried over from the previous faculty survey instrument.

The survey was fielded in spring 2024 to a sample of 135,384 faculty members and was active in the field for a total of six weeks. In total, we received 5,259 completed survey responses for an overall response rate of 3.9 percent. Survey invitations and reminder emails were distributed via Qualtrics between February 7, 2024, and March 20, 2024. All invitation and reminder messages were deployed from Ithaka S+R and partner scholarly societies (see the Methodology Appendix for full list).

Survey respondents were randomly assigned to one of two additional blocks of questions representing two thematic deep dives—one on generative AI and one on academic freedom and censorship. A subsample of 2,654 individuals were randomly assigned to, and completed, four questions on the use of generative AI in instructional contexts. Similarly, a subsample of 2,605 individuals were randomly assigned to, and completed, four questions on institutional dynamics of academic freedom and censorship in instruction.

As with previous cycles of the faculty survey and other national surveys fielded at Ithaka S+R, we will deposit the dataset with ICPSR for long-term access, preservation, and data management.

More detailed information about the survey methodological approach is located in the Appendix.

Teaching and Learning

Professional Responsibilities

Since the 2024 US Instructor Survey was designed to specifically track the varied teaching and instructional-related professional responsibilities and activities of faculty, all respondents were teaching some combination of undergraduate and graduate courses (see Figure 1 below). The majority of instructors (85 percent) were also responsible for providing service to either their institution or profession (e.g., serving on a committee) and advising or mentoring students beyond the classroom setting.

Three quarters of respondents conducted academic research in some capacity, while 42 percent reported research fundraising and grant proposal creation responsibilities. More social scientists (58 percent) engaged with public audiences beyond their academic institution, followed by 52 percent of humanists and 43 percent of scientists. By discipline, a larger share of scientists (57 percent) managed fundraising and grant proposal creation for research purposes, compared to 41 percent of social scientists and 34 percent of humanists.

More social scientists (58 percent) engaged with public audiences beyond their academic institution, followed by 52 percent of humanists and 43 percent of scientists.

Figure 1. Please indicate which, if any, of the following are among your professional responsibilities. Percent of respondents who indicated each activity is among their professional responsibilities.

Teaching Practices

In this section, we cover instructors’ teaching practices and activities, including their perceptions and uses of digital instructional modalities, assigned course materials, and pedagogies that take advantage of emerging technologies. Sixty-seven percent of instructors were teaching at least one lower-division undergraduate course, 74 percent were teaching at least one upper-division undergraduate course, and 49 percent were teaching one or more graduate-level courses.

Overall, the majority of instructors felt confident in their ability to develop their own course syllabi, materials, and lesson plans as well as use their institution’s learning management system (LMS) (see Figure 2). Across age groups, a larger share of younger faculty were interested in taking advantage of new technology than their older colleagues: 62 percent of instructors between the ages of 22 to 34 agreed or strongly agreed that they would like to adopt new pedagogies in the classroom or take advantage of instructional approaches using new technologies, compared to 53 percent of instructors ages 35-44, 48 percent of instructors ages 55 to 64, and 44 percent of instructors ages 65 and over.

Sixty-two percent of instructors between the ages of 22 to 34 agreed or strongly agreed that they would like to adopt new pedagogies in the classroom or take advantage of instructional approaches using new technologies.

While most instructors agreed that they are supported by their institution in their teaching activities, across age groups a larger share of instructors (53 percent) who are 65 and over agreed or strongly agreed they are supported with their teaching activities, compared to 44 percent of instructors between the ages of 22 to 34. In general, the majority of instructors did not find it difficult to locate instructional support services or materials; however, for those instructors who did, a little over 20 percent are between the ages of 22-34 compared to roughly the 10 percent of instructors who are 65 and over.

Figure 2. Please read the following statements and indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with each. Percent of respondents who agreed or strongly agreed with the following statements about teaching and learning.

The majority of instructors across disciplines reported that they often or occasionally show instructional videos in the classroom as one component of lecture or discussion (see Figure 3). Two-thirds (67 percent) of these are in the social sciences, followed by 52 percent in the humanities, and 46 percent in the sciences. Additionally, while 44 percent of instructors also indicated that they often or occasionally use publisher-provided materials to support their lesson planning overall, larger shares of social scientists (42 percent) and scientists (40 percent) used these pre-made materials compared to instructors in the humanities (26 percent). A smaller share of humanists (29 percent) asked students to watch pre-recorded lectures to reserve face time for other activities (including things like discussion), compared to social scientists (42 percent) and scientists (41 percent).

The majority of instructors across disciplines reported that they often or occasionally show instructional videos in the classroom as one component of lecture or discussion.

Figure 3. Whether you do it yourself or you are supported by your college or university in doing so, how often do you utilize each of the following techniques in your courses? Percent of respondents who indicated whether they often or occasionally utilize the following techniques in their courses on their own or with institutional support.

When asked about the materials they most often assign in their courses, regardless of position or title, the majority selected textbooks or textbook chapters more than any other course material item, followed closely by peer-reviewed journal articles (see Figure 4). However, we see some variation across instructors based on different roles or positions: 69 percent of non-tenured instructors assigned peer-reviewed journals compared to 82 percent of tenured faculty and 84 percent of those on the tenure-track. This trend is also evident for scholarly monographs: 66 percent of tenured faculty reported that they assign monographs, compared to 55 percent of those on the tenure-track and about 42 percent of non-tenured instructors.

Figure 4. How often do you assign your students to read or otherwise engage with each of the following types of materials in preparation for a class? Percent of respondents who often or occasionally assign the following materials to read or otherwise engage in preparation for a class.

Perspectives on Instructional Support

The following section reviews the different types of support that instructors receive for their teaching activities as well as how instructors regard the varying types of instructional supports offered by their institutions. Overall, the majority of instructors named their department (81 percent), the IT help desk and services (70 percent), and other teachers in their professional network (64 percent) as the most important sources of support for their instructional needs and teaching activities (see Figure 5 below).

As shown in Figure 5 below, functional library services—such as course reserves, copyright advising, and general research skills, courses, and services—were also selected as very or extremely important sources of support by 61 percent of faculty. Yet, just 41 percent of faculty in the aggregate rated subject librarians or liaisons in their discipline as very or extremely important to their teaching needs. Further, instructional design services were not rated as highly—only 39 percent of instructors rated these services as very or extremely important—and 91 percent agreed or strongly agreed that they are confident in their own ability to develop their course syllabus, materials, and lesson plans.

The importance of different areas of support varied by tenure status. For instance, 51 percent of non-tenured and 47 percent of tenure-track instructors indicated that their campus’s teaching and learning center is the most important possible source of instructional support, compared to only 36 percent of tenured faculty.

Figure 5. How important are each of the following possible sources of support at your institution for your teaching? Percent of respondents by tenure status or position who rated each of the following sources of support as very or extremely important.

For instructors who received assistance with different aspects of their teaching, the majority get assistance with IT or software needs, supporting their students' non-curricular needs—like basic needs, mental health, or other non-curricular needs—and improving their pedagogical approaches in the classroom (see Figure 6). A slightly larger share of tenure-track faculty (78 percent) received support with improving their pedagogical skills and practices, compared to 74 percent of tenured faculty, followed by about 70 percent of non-tenured instructors.

Overall, instructors across positions also seek assistance with examining teaching practices that may introduce bias in the classroom.

Overall, instructors across positions also seek assistance with examining teaching practices that may introduce bias in the classroom. However, in terms of diversifying course materials, which includes considering authors and scholars from historically marginalized backgrounds in course readings, and considering a range of materials (e.g., films, textbooks, etc.), a larger share of non-tenured instructors get support (54 percent), compared to tenure-track (45 percent), and tenured faculty (44 percent).

Figure 6. Do you get assistance with any of the following aspects of teaching from your college or university? Percent of respondents by tenure-status or position who indicated that they get assistance from their college or university with the following aspects of instruction and teaching.

Figure 7 demonstrates how valuable instructors perceived the different possible sources of assistance for their teaching along with the percentage of instructors who actively received assistance in those areas. In the aggregate, the majority of instructors found it very or extremely valuable to receive support with the areas in which they are already receiving it, such as IT or software needs, students’ non-curricular needs, and improving their pedagogical practices. While we see some variation between those instructors who received support in IT or software (92 percent) and those instructors who would find assistance in this area to be very valuable (81 percent), some of this variation may simply be due to instructors seeing this support both as necessary and valuable to their teaching.

More than half of the respondents either value or would value services that can be made available through the library or teaching and learning centers.

More than half of the respondents either value or would value services that can be made available through the library or teaching and learning centers. For instance, while half of instructors received assistance with integrating diversified courses materials, two-thirds of instructors would value continued or substantial support in this area. Similarly, we see that 41 percent of instructors received assistance with discovering media content for their teaching—such as through Kanopy, YouTube, or Alexander Street—and 54 percent of instructors would value receiving support in the discovery of media content. We also see that a larger share of instructors believed that it would be very valuable if their institution provided support to leverage student academic performance or behavior to either shape mid-course corrections or future course design (59 percent), compared to a smaller share of instructors who actively received assistance in this area (45 percent).

Figure 7. Do you get assistance with any of the following aspects of teaching from your college or university and how valuable do you find support for each of the following aspects of teaching from your college or university, or how valuable would you find it if this support was offered to you? Percent of respondents who indicated that they get assistance from their college or university with the following aspects of instruction and teaching, and percent of respondents who indicated each of the following possible sources of instructional support as very or extremely valuable.

The Role of the Library

The following section considers instructors’ perceptions of the role of their college or university’s library as it pertains to providing instructional support for teaching activities and responsibilities. Since this particular set of questions has been asked in previous editions of the faculty survey, we briefly report on some longitudinal analysis in this section. The following are the nine items presented to respondents, including a shorthand name used in this document (but not presented to respondents in the survey) for reference:

Archive: “The library serves as a repository of resources—in other words, it archives, preserves, and keeps track of resources.”

Buyer: “The library pays for resources I need, from academic journals to books to electronic databases.”

Gateway: “The library serves as a starting point or "gateway" for locating information for my research.”

Graduate Support: “The library supports graduate students in conducting research, managing data, and publishing scholarship.”

Physical Space: “The library provides an informal academic environment and space that supports student learning.”

Research Support: “The library provides active support that helps to increase my productivity in research and scholarship.”

Teaching Support: “The library supports and facilitates my teaching activities.”

Technology Support: “The library provides access to technology resources that support student learning.”

Undergraduate Support: “The library helps undergraduates develop research, critical analysis, and information literacy skills.”

Similar to findings from the 2021 faculty survey cycle, and across disciplines, the majority of instructors rated their library’s role as a “buyer” as the most important role compared to the other roles or functions of the library followed closely by the archive role (see Figure 8). Since the physical space and technology support roles were added in 2021, the majority of instructors continue to rate these roles are highly important, followed closely by the library’s role in supporting undergraduate students with their research, critical analysis and information literacy skills. Also consistent with the 2021 version of the faculty survey (see Figure 9), larger shares of humanists and social scientists rated each role of the library as highly important compared to scientists. Sixty-seven percent of humanists, followed by 59 percent of social scientists and 44 percent of scientists, rated the library’s role in supporting teaching as highly important.

The majority of instructors rated their library’s role as a “buyer” as the most important role compared to the other roles or functions of the library.

Figure 8. How important is it to you that your college or university library provides each of the functions below or serves in the capacity listed below? Percent of respondents that rated each function of the library as very or extremely important.

Figure 9. How important is it to you that your college or university library provides each of the functions below or serves in the capacity listed below? Percent of respondents that rated each function of the library as very or extremely important in 2024, 2021, and 2018.

Consistent with previous US Faculty Survey cycles, the majority of faculty want to ease the cost burden of course materials. In 2024, 88 percent instructors reported that they often or occasionally looked to assign low or no-cost course materials for their students and that 81 percent often or occasionally take time to examine and update their instructional approaches and pedagogies from an evidence-based perspective (see Figure 10). A larger share of instructors in the humanities and social sciences reported a preference to assign course materials, readings, and texts that center voices from historically marginalized groups and communities than instructors in the sciences.

Instructors may regularly go to the library for their material needs, but they did not report frequently engaging with librarians or instructional designers to develop their syllabi and lesson plans. While 61 percent reported often or occasionally giving preference to assigning course materials available through the library, 57 percent of instructors had never liaised with a librarian before making final selections of which course texts or materials to assign. Similarly 58 percent have never informed a librarian once a syllabus has been issued to their students. Even smaller shares of scientists liaised with a librarian before finalizing their course materials or informed a librarian once their syllabus had been issued than their social scientist and humanist colleagues. Across disciplines, a larger share of social scientists than humanists and scientists consulted with an instructional designer to help them develop new or update courses.

Across disciplines, a larger share of social scientists than humanists and scientists consulted with an instructional designer to help them develop new or update courses.

Figure 10. In general, how often do you perform each of the following when designing or structuring your undergraduate courses? Percent of respondents by discipline that often or occasionally perform each of the following items when designing undergraduate courses.

Open Educational Resources

As in the 2021 US Faculty Survey, we asked questions to learn more about instructors' perceptions of open educational resources (OERs) and how valuable they are for their teaching and instruction. For the purposes of this report, “OERs” are defined as teaching, learning, and research materials used for educational purposes that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license, such as Creative Commons, that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

Overall, many more instructors reported that they use OERs in their courses rather than create their own. This is in line with the findings from the 2021 survey. A greater share reported using open textbooks (52 percent), followed by open video lectures (45 percent), and open course modules (32 percent). We also see that a larger share of instructors reported using all three types of OERs in 2024 than in 2021, while the share of instructors creating OERs has stayed roughly the same (Figure 11).

Figure 11. Which, if any, of the following open educational resources have you created and/or used in your courses? Please check all that apply. Percent of respondents who indicated whether they have created and/or used open educational resources in their courses.

While over half of instructors (55 percent) reported feeling confident in their ability to create and publish OERs (Figure 12 below), as Figure 11 shows, a much smaller share of instructors reported creating them. One plausible explanation for this difference is that instructors may very likely not have the time to create OERs or are creating other learning resources that they have not opened up for re-use by others.

Overall, 51 percent of instructors were confident in their ability to use and implement OERs in their courses. Only 21 percent of instructors found it difficult to find or locate OERs to use for their teaching. Similar to the 2021 findings, a smaller share of instructors believed that their institution provides excellent training and support for using OERs, or recognized and rewarded them for taking the time to integrate these kinds of resources and materials into their instructional practices.

A smaller share of instructors believed that their institution provides excellent training and support for using OERs, or recognized and rewarded them for taking the time to integrate these kinds of resources and materials into their instructional practices.

Figure 12. Please read the following statements and indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with each. Percent of respondents who indicated the degree to which they either agree or disagree with the following statements about open educational resources.

Conclusion

The 2024 US Instructor Survey provides critical insights into the evolving instructional and pedagogical practices of college and university faculty in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey highlights the significant role of libraries, the increasing use of open educational resources (OERs), and the importance of institutional support in integrating technology and diversifying course materials. Instructors demonstrate confidence in developing courses and are eager to adopt new pedagogies that embrace technology and innovative and diverse teaching modalities, underscoring a commitment to enhancing student learning and success. The increasing adoption of OERs also underscores faculty commitment to providing affordable course materials, promoting equitable and affordable access to education and information. These findings emphasize the need for ongoing investment in instructional support and resources to meet the diverse and changing needs of students and faculty alike. As we look ahead to our 2025 survey of faculty researchers, we hope institutions and resource providers will use our findings here to further support the instructional needs of faculty to further student success and educational attainment.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our colleagues Dylan Ruediger, Roger Schonfeld, Mark McBride, Ioana Hulbert, Ess Pokornowski, as well as Danielle Cooper, for all their contributions towards developing the survey instrument. The individuals named in this section provided a variety of important contributions to this project, and we thank them for their partnership. Final responsibility for the survey and its analysis rests with the authors.

Appendix

Methodology

Our sample was drawn from a population of US instructors’ contact information, which was compiled and maintained by MDR, an education marketing names list vendor.

Our sampling strategy for the 2024 US Instructor Survey closely aligned with that from previous editions of the faculty survey. We selected a sample of instructors at four-year colleges and universities from MDR’s list affiliated with the following Carnegie Classifications: Baccalaureate Colleges – Arts & Sciences; Baccalaureate Colleges – Diverse Fields; Master’s Colleges & Universities (smaller programs); Master’s Colleges & Universities (medium programs); Master’s Colleges & Universities (larger programs); Doctoral/Professional Universities; Doctoral Universities (high research activity); Doctoral Universities (very high research activity); Special Focus Four-Year: Medical Schools & Centers; Special Focus Four-Year: Other Health Professions Schools.

Within these Carnegie Classifications, we sampled from the same range of fields and disciplines we sampled in 2021. Those fields and disciplines include: Area Studies (African American studies, African studies, American studies, Asian studies, Indian studies, Latin American studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and Slavic studies), Humanities (art history, classical studies, foreign languages, history (including the history of science), law, literature, music, philosophy, religion, and theater and drama), Social Sciences (anthropology (includes archeology), business and finance, economics, education (includes higher education), geography, political science, psychology, public policy (including health policy), sociology, and women’s studies), Sciences (agricultural studies, biology (includes botany, ecology, zoology), biomed, chemistry, engineering, geology, mathematics (includes statistics), physics, physical sciences/astronomy, and public health), and Medicine. Respondents from Area Studies and Medicine have been excluded from stratified results presented throughout this report. However, these faculty members are included in the aggregate response figures.

The survey was distributed via email in the backend of Qualtrics to a sample of 135,284 randomly selected US-based instructors and faculty with the parameters detailed above. In total, we received 5,259 completed responses with an overall response rate of 3.9 percent. Invitations were deployed on February 7, 2024, and four reminder messages were sent to those who had not yet completed the survey, including a final reminder message. The final reminder message (reminder four) was distributed on March 14, 2024, and the survey was officially closed on March 20, 2024.

In November and December 2023, we conducted five in-depth cognitive interviews to ensure that the instrument was understood clearly and consistently across respondents. Survey testers were from a variety of fields, institution types, and roles.

Consistent with S+R’s national survey practices, we partnered with selected scholarly societies who served as signatories for communications (e.g., survey invitations, reminder emails, etc.) to instructors and faculty members in those corresponding disciplines.^[5] These societies included:

• American Educational Research Association
• American Philosophical Association
• Modern Language Association
• National Council of Teachers of English

For all other instructors and faculty, invitation and reminder messages were sent from Catharine Bond Hill, managing director of Ithaka S+R, and Roger Schonfeld, Ithaka S+R’s vice president of organizational strategy and libraries, scholarly communication, and museums.

In this report, we also highlight stratified responses from respondents from different institution types, job titles/roles, and age when clear and meaningful patterns present themselves. See Participant Demographics below for a breakdown of disciplinary affiliations among other participant demographics.

Question Types

Many of the questions fell into at least four question types: those that asked respondents to rate something between “extremely important” and “not at all important,” those that asked respondents to rate something between “extremely valuable” and “not at all valuable,” those that asked them to rate the degree to which they agree or disagree with something, or those that asked them how often they do something from among the choices of “never,” “rarely,” “occasionally,” and “often.”

A common type of question that was used throughout the survey asked respondents to rate something between “extremely important and “not at all important” sometimes, with a “not applicable” option. For example, we asked respondents to rate how important possible sources of support—such as their departments and library services—are to their teaching responsibilities and activities, where 5 equals “Extremely important” and 1 equals “Not at all important.” In our reporting here, we have aggregated responses to simplify the presentation of findings; responses of 4 (very important) and 5 (extremely important) are grouped together as “highly important,” responses of 3 remain the same as moderately important, and responses of 2 (slightly important) and 1 (not at all important) are grouped together as “not important.” More specifically, for our question that asks faculty to rate the importance of the various roles of the library, due to the longitudinal nature of this question, the scale remains the same 6-point scale. For this question specifically, in the aggregate, and for analysis, responses of 5 to 6 are grouped together as “highly important” and responses of 1 to 2 are grouped together as “not important.”

Similarly, questions that ask respondents to rate something between “extremely valuable” and “not at all valuable,” are numerically rated on a 1 to 5 scale, where 5 equals “extremely valuable” and 1 equals “not at all valuable.” For analysis, responses of 4 (very valuable) to 5 (extremely valuable) are grouped together as “valuable,” responses of 3 are “moderately valuable,” responses of 2 are “slightly valuable,” and responses of 1 are “not at all valuable.”

For those questions where we asked respondents to rate their actual degree of agreement or disagreement, we used a seven-point scale. In our analysis and reporting, we have combined levels of agreement and disagreement to further simplify findings: respondents who indicated either “strongly agree” or “agree” are grouped together; responses for “somewhat agree,” “neither agree nor disagree,” and “somewhat disagree” are grouped together; and responses of “disagree” and “strongly disagree” were grouped together.

In addition, we asked a few questions of respondents about how often they do something or perform a certain function, with answer options of “never,” “rarely,” “occasionally,” and “often.” For these question types, we grouped together “often” and “occasionally” in order to characterize things that are done with some degree of regularity.

Participant Demographics

*Percentages may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.

Endnotes

1. Dylan Ruediger, Melissa Blankstein, Sage Love, “Generative AI and Postsecondary Instructional Practices: Findings from a National Survey of Instructors,” Ithaka S+R, 20 June 2024, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.320892; Ioana G. Hulbert, Ess Pokornowski, “Perceptions of Academic Freedom in Teaching: Findings from a National Survey of Instructors,” Ithaka S+R, 25 July 2024, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.321056. ↑
2. In 2025, we will field a survey on faculty research. See more: Danielle Cooper, Sage Love, and Melissa Blankstein, “US Faculty Survey Updates: 2021 Data Now Available and Looking Ahead to 2024,” Ithaka S+R, 11 April 2023, https://sr.ithaka.org/blog/us-faculty-survey-updates/. ↑
3. Dylan Ruediger, Melissa Blankstein, Sage Love, “Generative AI and Postsecondary Instructional Practices: Findings from a National Survey of Instructors,” Ithaka S+R, 20 June 2024, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.320892; Ioana G. Hulbert, Ess Pokornowski, “Perceptions of Academic Freedom in Teaching: Findings from a National Survey of Instructors,” Ithaka S+R, 25 July 2024, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.321056. ↑
4. Melissa Blankstein, “Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2021,” Ithaka S+R, 14 July 2022, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.316896. ↑
5. Response rates at the disciplinary level varied when compared against the MDR population due in large part to the effectiveness of outreach and communications via our scholarly society partners. To adjust for uneven response rates by field, we have weighted the aggregate results from our sample proportionally to match population parameters. This approach is consistent with methodological adjustment techniques employed for previous cycles of the survey and affects results only to a very marginal degree. ↑