Historians Teach More and Larger Classes, but Make Less Use of Technology

Historians teach more and slightly larger classes than faculty in most other disciplines, but make less use of technology, according to the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty.

Alongside the valuable data on who teaches history in two- and four-year colleges and universities and what they earn that we reported in the March 2006 Perspectives, the new study also provides important insights into some work practices of historians, and allows us to see them in the larger context of academia.

Some of the findings merely reinforce common perceptions—that undergraduate classes at liberal arts colleges are much smaller than in other institutions, that senior faculty spend significantly less time teaching undergraduate students, and that historians make less use of technology in their teaching than other disciplines. But the report also offers evidence that may seem slightly less obvious—that an unusually high proportion of historians identify teaching as their primary activity, that graduate courses in the history are among the smallest in academia, and that there are only modest generational differences in the use of technology in the classroom.