Evaluating ADN Faculty Job Satisfaction

Purpose: The United States is facing a critical shortage of nurses just as the aging baby boomer generation is requiring more nursing care. In 2014, 78% of all Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) programs turned away 25% of qualified applicants due to a lack of faculty (National League of Nursing [NLN], 2014). The purpose of this project was to identify and evaluate specific factors contributing to job satisfaction for ADN faculty nationwide in order to inform academic leaders who are best positioned to positively address these factors, thus retaining faculty at their organizations.

Methods: Faculty from 703 ADN programs in the United States, accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN), were included in this project. All full and part time ADN faculty (n=9402) with email addresses identified on their college or institution’s website were emailed a survey containing the Index of Work Satisfaction (Stamps, 1997) with reminder emails sent out at two additional times. Participants provided demographic data and responded to statements related to job satisfaction by utilizing a Likert-scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’.

Results: The survey response rate was 26.3% (n=2,479). A score was assigned to each of the six components on a scale ranging from 5-70, with 5 representing low satisfaction and 70 representing high satisfaction. The three components of least satisfaction were salary (19.22), interactions between faculty and administrators (23.85) and task requirements (24.16), while the components of greatest satisfaction were overall interactions (49.56), professional status (41.46) and autonomy (38.76).

Conclusion: The faculty responses suggest that addressing the factors leading to job dissatisfaction can encourage faculty to remain in academe, such as increasing salaries, improving faculty-administrator interactions and adjusting task requirements. Efforts to enhance the job satisfiers, such as flexible scheduling to support greater faculty autonomy and increasing opportunities for faculty-faculty interactions will create a positive environment that encourages faculty to remain in academia. The faculty responses to professional status require further inquiry to determine the relationship to job satisfaction. At this time of increased demand for nursing care, the need for faculty retention is critical in order to ensure adequate nursing faculty are available to educate the next generation of nurses. In order to accomplish this, the areas of ADN faculty least satisfaction need to be addressed and innovative, cost effective strategies to support job satisfiers implemented.