Characterizing the Training and Evaluation of Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) at Research-Intensive Universities: Highlighting Best Practices and Opportunities for Reform

Abstract

Abstract Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play a crucial role in undergraduate and graduate education in Mechanical Engineering (ME). Depending on the course and course instructor, GTAs hold a variety of responsibilities such as grading homework and exams, interacting with students in labs and during office hours, proctoring exams, and administrative and technical assistance to faculty. In less frequent cases, GTAs create course content or take the lead in the classroom. In many engineering departments, especially at research-intensive universities, GTA appointments are reserved for first-year students who have not yet found research funding, or to cover a lapse in research funding. This structure reflects a prioritization of research over teaching, compounded by a documented lack of formal pedagogical training for GTAs. GTAs may receive training in the form of short workshops with information pertaining only to their duties as GTAs and are rarely provided with formal evaluations from students and faculty. As each university, department, and even individual supervising faculty have differing expectations, training, and evaluations of GTAs, the levels at which graduate students as future faculty are trained for pedagogical roles are, at best, inconsistent. To propose opportunities for best practices in the training and evaluation of GTAs in Mechanical Engineering, however, it is necessary to characterize different existing paradigms of GTA support across mechanical engineering departments. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What are the existing patterns in how ME departments manage and support their graduate teaching assistants 2. How do multiple stakeholders associated with GTAs characterize the expectations, training, and evaluation of teaching assistants? To answer these research questions, we employ a content analysis of publicly available resources for Graduate TAs in Mechanical Engineering programs departments within the 14 universities in the Big 10+ academic alliance. Assuming the amount and the digital location/affiliation of digital resources corresponds with the integration of GTAs into departmental teaching priorities, our findings indicate a wide variety of different models through which GTAs are supported and evaluated. However, most Mechanical Engineering programs in the United States rely heavily on resources located outside of their respective Colleges of Engineering, leaning on the Graduate schools and universities more centrally, indicating only peripheral prioritization of the training and evaluation of GTAs. The patterns within these data lead to implications in terms of gaps in resources and summative assessment to better educate and evaluate GTAs to help them develop into the Mechanical Engineering faculty of the future.