Earning tenure with outstanding teaching: Using logistic regression to understand how demographic variables and the FIT-choice scale predict success

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate motivation to teach for higher education faculty within schools of education. Design/methodology/approach This study utilized survey research methods to collect data from higher education faculty at nine universities identified from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of teaching website. Findings The predictor variables of gender, years of teaching in higher education, percent of overall workload devoted to teaching and two dummy variables for type of institution (i.e. doctoral granting and research II institution) when considered together did not statistically significantly predict whether or not a faculty person achieved tenure with outstanding teaching. In total, 14 of the factors influencing teaching (FIT)-choice scale components statistically significantly predicted whether or not a faculty person achieved tenure with outstanding teaching, only social dissuasion statistically significantly added to the model. Originality/value This is the first study to use the FIT-choice scale with university education faculty, and the findings suggest that higher education faculty may be motivated to produce high-quality instruction based on different factors than K-12 teachers.