Abstract
Good tutoring requires appropriate interpersonal and pedagogical skills. Tutor personality is a major factor affecting how tutors communicate and deals with students, and yet it is a largely unexplored context of distance education. Using the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI)* this paper examines how the personality of tutors’ affects their teaching effectiveness at a distance learning institution in Hong Kong. The results are compared to those reported by Chan (2001) in a similar study using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The results indicate that certain scales on the Chinese Tradition factor of the CPAI are significantly related to tutors’ teaching performance, and that the MBTI could not subsume all the CPAI scales. Future research with the CPAI should explore whether this Chinese Tradition factor is unique to the Chinese culture or whether it comprises elements of a universal domain useful in understanding key interpersonal aspects of personality that have been absent from Western personality inventories.
Highlights
Special thanks to the developers of the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI): Prof
The result obtained from a principal components factor analysis on the behavioural ratings student data is shown in Table 2, which summarises result of the factor analysis of the Teaching Evaluation Questionnaire (TEQ)
This four-factor solution accounted for 58.1 per cent of the total variance in behaviour ratings, with the largest portion (43.3 per cent of the variance) represented by the motivation factor. This finding, in and of itself, highlights the singular importance of autonomy-supportive dimension involved in the evaluation of teaching effectiveness within the context of distance education – the support of students’ initiatives and intrinsic motivation is of vital importance
Summary
Special thanks to the developers of the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI): Prof. Education involves human relationships; human interaction and distance education is no exception. During the past few decades, distance education has become an increasingly popular and widespread mode in response to adult learners’ need for individualized and decentralized educational opportunities. Tutors and tutorials are important components within a distance education system. Distance education providers offer structured materials to guide students, enabling them flexibility in choosing where and when they study. Tutors act as a crucial link between the University and its students, and tutorials provide a great opportunity for face-to-face interaction between and amongst students and their tutors
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