Decision making of university teacher: motivating and inspiring students versus too high criticality and demands of teacher

Abstract

Profession of a university teacher is extremely difficult and responsible. On the one hand, teachers are faced with a sense of high social responsibility for their work, and on the other hand, they need a high motivation for their work, often associated with a great deal of altruism and a sense of belonging with their colleagues and students. Based on the questionnaire survey, conducted on a sample of 357 students of University of Žilina, students deemed the skills to motivate and inspire students as essential attribute of a great university teacher. On the contrary, excessive criticism and demands of teachers in relation to students (which basically represents the mirror – reflection – of the teacher’s perceived responsibility) is considered by students as inappropriate, undesirable attribute of teacher. Based on analysis, synthesis, comparison and generalization of theoretical knowledge and evaluation of the survey results, the aim of paper is to focus attention on two academic top- attributes of teacher: (a) the effort to instill in students a high responsibility for their own decisions/outcomes; (b) the skills to motivate and inspire students to expected results. To master a harmonized mixture of these two elements represents a difficult decision problem of many university teachers. Therefore, conclusion of the paper gives a simple qualitative model of decision-making that can simplify teacher’s decision-making regarding the efforts to be popular among the students for easy tasks and/versus be respected in motivating-and-inspiring approach based on precise and hard work and interaction of both the student and the teacher.Â