The stone the builders rejected : an initial inquiry into the role of the textbook in the professional culture of the higher education faculty

The college or university textbook is authored by scholars, published within a national and international system of presses, and evaluated by both scholarly and market mechanisms. Despite this cosmopolitan framework of scholarly authoring and publishing activities, little is known about the place of the textbook in the context of scholarly activities within the faculty. This inquiry addressed three basic questions: "How does the faculty learn about textbooks in the marketplace?" "How does the faculty evaluate and select textbooks?" and "How does the faculty evaluate the authoring of textbooks and related works as an element of scholarly productivity?"

The inquiry was framed as an institutional culture study. Questions were examined on a cross-disciplinary basis among seven disciplinary groups and on a multi-level basis among faculty members, department heads, and editors of ranking journals. The inquiry involved structured interviews with 84 faculty members and 28 department heads at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. A survey was mailed to the editors of 157 ranking scholarly journals. Ten major marketing mechanisms, a four-part model of textbook selection, and four areas of scholarly engagement were examined along with supporting questions.

Non-parametric and descriptive analysis resulted in numerous conclusions. The textbook market revolves around direct access to copies of the books. Critical reviews of textbooks are isolated from the mainstream and play only a secondary role. There are definable disciplinary differences in criteria for selecting textbooks. A strong pattern of support for the scholarship of authoring textbooks is shown. There is a much lower expectation of utility in terms of scholarly reward. Opinions regarding the scholarship of authoring textbooks split along epistemological grounds. Expectation of utility is formed more by institutional and managerial factors. Engineering and educational disciplines express the highest degree of support for actual authoring activities. Department heads tend to express positions with less uncertainty. Generally textbooks are perceived as being non-competitive with the more rapid routes to reputation and financial gain represented by publication in refereed journals and grant development.

Based on the findings and conclusions a series of collective institutional and disciplinary actions are proposed for further investigation. These areas may offer ways to enhance the role of textbook authoring as an expression of pedagogical scholarship. A basic taxonomy of research questions tying textbooks to student, faculty, structural, and managerial concerns is proposed.