An Investigation of Factors that Influence Workload Distributions of Faculty: Gender, Professional Identity, Prosocial Motivation, and Work Centrality

Abstract

Faculty regularly face heavy workloads and limited promotions opportunities, andwomen faculty advance more slowly and are promoted less often than men. Faculty responsibilities are typically categorized into three domains: teaching, research, and service (TRS), with research being the most valued for promotion. Literature shows women spend more time on teaching and service compared to men, but previous studies rely predominantly on retrospective self-report and rarely examine factors that could influence time allocation decisions. The present study investigates how tenured and tenure-track faculty at a large R1 university allocate their time across TRS using real-time activity reporting and examines three factors that could influence time allocation: professional identity, prosocial motivation, and work centrality. Given the gender disparity in academic promotions, this study also examines how gender moderates the relationships between these factors and time allocation. 41 faculty reported their work activities in 15-minute increments over two weeks using time tracking software and responded to two online surveys to assess additional study variables. Hierarchical regressions were used to analyze how professional identity, prosocial motivation, and work centrality relate to time spent in TRS and how these relationships differ by gender.