Abstract
BackgroundTeachers play an important role in seminars as facilitators and content experts. However, contextual factors like students’ preparation, group size, group interaction, and content appear to influence their performance. Understanding the impact of these contextual factors on students’ perception of teaching performance may help to further understand seminar teaching. Besides that, it may help curriculum organisers and teachers to get more insight in how to optimise their versatile role in seminars. The aim of this study is to investigate how students’ perception of teaching performance in seminars is explained by students’ extent of preparation, seminar group size, group interaction, and content.MethodsThe Utrecht Seminar Evaluation (USEME) questionnaire was used to collect information on teaching performance and the aforementioned explanatory variables. To account for intra-student, intra-seminar, and intra-teacher correlation in the data, multilevel regression was used to analyse 988 completed questionnaires in 80 seminars with 36 different teachers.ResultsGroup interaction and seminar content had large (B = 0.418) and medium (B = 0.212) positive effects on perceived teaching performance scores, whereas the effects of students’ preparation (B = -0.055) and group size (B = -0.130) were small and negative.ConclusionsThis study provides curriculum organisers and teachers indications on how to optimise variables that influence perceived teaching performance in seminars. It is suggested that teachers should search for the most appropriate combination of motivating and challenging content and facilitation method within seminars to optimise discussion opportunities between students.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1472-6920-14-203) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
IntroductionIntroduction to the Study ofEducation. 3rd edition. Edited by Matheson D
Introduction to the Study ofEducation. 3rd edition
Content, group interaction, and teaching performance, we averaged the scores of items within the scale of the factor in question for every student
Summary
Introduction to the Study ofEducation. 3rd edition. Edited by Matheson D. Spruijt A, Wolfhagen I, Bok H, Schuurmans E, Scherpbier A, van Beukelen P, Jaarsma D: Teachers’ perceptions of aspects affecting seminar learning: a qualitative study. Dolmans D, Gijselaers WH, Moust JH, Grave WSD, Wolfhagen H, Vleuten C: Trends in research on the tutor in problem-based learning: conclusions and implications for educational practice and research. Dolmans D, Wolfhagen H, Scherpbier A, Van Der Vleuten C: Relationship of tutors’ group-dynamic skills to their performance ratings in problem-based learning. Seminar teaching demands versatile, complex skills and roles of the teachers These roles are largely comparable to the roles of teachers in groups of 15 students in a hybrid curriculum [13] and to a large extent comparable to the roles of teachers (tutors) in tutorials in a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. Compared to tutors in PBL, seminar teachers facilitate larger groups of students (between 20-30 students per group) and they lack a clear standard procedure (like the 7-jump in PBL) [14] that supports group facilitation
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