This collection of original essays was designed to aid the faculty development coordinator primarily, rather than the interested faculty member. However, since the use of jargon and statistical p-values has been kept to a minimum, interested faculty members will find in these readable essays some noteworthy suggestions.

The foundation for the book is laid out in the first essay. There, W. Alan Wright and M. Carol O'Neil present the results of an international survey of faculty-development coordinators regarding their confidence in the ability of each of 36 items to improve the quality of teaching at their respective institutions. All of the 331 respondents were from institutions which teach in English, with the exception of 10 French-language institutions in Canada. The authors integrate reviews of teaching research with their interpretation of the survey results.

Wright and O'Neil note a high degree of similarity in the ranks assigned by the respondents to the various items. High confidence was given to (1) deans and heads who foster an atmosphere in which good teaching is considered important, (2) employment policies and practices which recognize and reward good teaching, and (3) development opportunities and grants for faculty to find ways to improve their teaching. On the other hand, the faculty development coordinators had much less faith in the effectiveness of developmental resources such as professional libraries or circulation of articles and newsletters. Least of all was their faith in summative evaluation of instruction, whether in the form of self evaluation, student evaluation, or peer evaluation. The authors note the conflict between having supportive employment policies and having no acceptable means of evaluation. They argue, "while it may be difficult to demonstrate that fair, appropriate methods of summative evaluation have a direct, positive impact on the quality of teaching, their absence can certainly have a direct, negative impact." (p. 38)

Two papers (by Christopher Knapper and Keith Trigwell) turn to a subject not covered by Wright and O'Neil: the process of learning and how institutions improve it. According to Knapper, "learning styles inventories have a number of limitations as guides to the improvement of teaching and learning. For example, most of the scales lack content validity: although they do distinguish differences among learners, it is not clear that these differences are the most salient characteristics of learning. . . . Secondly, once a teacher has gathered data about the different learning styles of students in a class, there is the question of what can be done with this information" (p. 62). Nonetheless, he demonstrates that a department's teaching and grading style can affect the kind of learning which occurs. The traditional mass lecture-multiple choice setting tended to foster "surface learning," whereas a small-group setting in which the students had a choice of requirements fostered more "deep learning."

Three papers deal with specific teaching methods: problem-based learning, cooperative learning, and laboratory situations. These papers not only discuss the methods, but suggest ways that the department head can encourage faculty to adopt the methods.

Two essays deal specifically with methods of influencing the faculty. Richard Tiberius deals reviews changes in the methods used by faculty-development professionals and counselors. Organizing faculty workshops is addressed by James Eison and Ellen Stevens.

Another essay, by Mary Deane Sorcinelli and Norman D. Aiken, discusses the relations between the faculty development coordinator, the administration, and the faculty in effecting teaching changes. It points out many pitfalls in these relationships, examines their origins and suggests some solutions.

Although not ranked highly in Wright and O'Neil's survey, the use of faculty portfolios for faculty development is a fascinating topic which has been gaining attention recently. According to Peter Seldin, Linda Annis, and John Zubizarreta, a faculty portfolio "is to teaching what lists of publications, honors, and grants are to research and scholarship. . . " (p. 238). A portfolio might include student pre- and post-test scores, representative examples of graded student essays, descriptions of steps the professor has taken to improve his/her own teaching methods, evaluations by peers or students, a statement of teaching philosophy, or a statement of teaching goals. The portfolio could be used for formative or summative purposes, but the authors caution that the contents of the portfolio would be depend on the purpose of the portfolio. The process of compiling a portfolio requires the professor to reflect on the methods which have been used. But Seldin, Annis, and Zubizarreta argue that the portfolio should not be developed by the professor alone. A mentor would help the professor develop the evidence needed for the portfolio and offer consultation about the professor's teaching goals and the teaching methods. The faculty development coordinator could either be the mentor, or provide workshops to train other mentors.

Laurie Richlin examines the training of graduate teaching assistants to be professors. She notes a mismatch between the graduate school experience and the undergraduate teaching and advising which will occupy so much of the new professor's time. She argues that both graduate and undergraduate schools need to attach more importance to the scholarship of teaching. Milton Cox addresses the training of new faculty members in their new institutions, relying on the experience of the Teaching Scholars Program at his institution.

Swelling enrollments and budget tightening during the 1980s forced British universities to consider mass lectures, which had been quite rare prior to the 1980s. At the same time, the Thatcher government was restructured funding and stressed academic accountability Two fascinating papers from the U.K. describe the British institutions' adjustment to these changes. Graham Gibb describes the soul-searching that accompanied the implementation of a nation-wide system for training British faculty. George Gordon and Patricia Partington review the British experience with quality assessment. Although mass lectures have long been prevalent in American universities, American faculty and faculty developers have much to learn from both of these fresh reviews of issues which Americans tend to take for granted.

Jim Frederick
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke