Taiwanese students’ perceptions of teaching assistants’ effectiveness in group work education

Abstract

To effectively enhance teaching quality at universities, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan established a programme for promoting teaching excellence and adopted a teaching assistant (TA) system in 2004. Although studies of TA systems have covered various topics, empirical research investigating student perspectives of TA systems in the group work curriculum are lacking. The aim of this study was to explore students’ perspective on the effectiveness of TAs in classroom instruction and practical group training. To evaluate second-year university students’ perceptions, a two-part questionnaire consisting of eight Likert-type statements and four free-response questions was utilised. The majority of responses to Likert-type statements were 5 or 4; three conceptual themes indicated that students were highly concerned with the quality of TAs. The study provides a preliminary step in addressing the necessity of TAs in group work; long-term goals should be to invite more TAs into practical social work courses. In this paper, the study’s findings, their possible implications for group work education, and directions for future research are discussed.