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For decades, higher education institutions have been increasingly reliant upon part-time faculty. As the role of part-time faculty in colleges and universities has evolved and gained prominence, it is increasingly important to gain a deeper understanding of their perceptions of job involvement considered as potential predictor of turnover and absenteeism.
There are very few studies focusing on part-time faculty. Available research tends to be concerned with inequality in terms of income, benefits, working conditions, and opportunities for career advancement compared to full-time faculty, while perceptions of how distributive justice among part-time faculty members might be associated with their perceived levels of job involvement remain comparatively neglected. This study focused on exploring relationships between job involvement and other job-related variables, including perceived levels of distributive justice; whether or not part-time work status was voluntary or involuntary, or the position was primary or non-primary. Perceived levels of overqualified underemployment and perception of empowerment were also considered.
The study population was drawn from an existing database. The target population of the study was 165 part-time faculty members in the continuing education field at higher education institutions in the United States. OLS regression, ANOVA, and path analysis were utilized to explore the relationships between job involvement and the other job-related variables among part-time faculty in the study.
The analyses revealed that whether or not part-time work was voluntary, and the position was primary or non-primary did not significantly influence levels of job involvement. Furthermore, perceived distributive justice did not affect part-time faculty job involvement significantly. Levels of perceived distributive justice among part-time faculty members only influenced job involvement through empowerment. Empowering part-time faculty appears to be an essential element in efforts to enhance perceived levels of job involvement among part-time faculty.