Abstract
This research will explore teaching styles of university professors. Teaching style is an umbrella term for teaching decisions made during the entire teaching process - planning, delivery, and evaluation. Contemporary university teachers are advised to adopt the learner-centred teaching style which is assumed to produce remarkable possibilities. In the Fall Semester 2015 fifty-two respondents in different faculties of International University of Sarajevo were surveyed using The Principles of Adult Learning Scale inventory designed by Gary J. Conti. Inventory scores were calculated according to guidelines suggested by the author of the inventory. The scores revealed that majority of respondents strongly supported teacher-centred rather than learner-centred styles of instruction. Scores were analysed on gender lines and across three different faculties, namely: Arts and Social Sciences; Business and Administration; Engineering and Natural Sciences. In all five groups none of the seven teaching style indicators was found to conform with the learner-centred teaching criteria. There was no statistically significant difference between the two genders' preference for a teaching style. And there was no statistically significant difference between teaching style preference across the three different faculties.The results of this research imply that the learner-centred style of instruction is not frequently implemented. Secondly, the results indicate that the requirements necessary for proper application of the learner-centred teaching style are not easy to meet in current written and unwritten norms. Finally, the results show that traditional teaching styles, which have been preserved in different scientific fields, still predominate in universities.
Highlights
High Level Group for the Modernisation of Higher Education, which was invited by the 2010-2014 European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth “to set out recommendations on enhancing higher education” [1], recommends the adoption of the learner-centred instruction model
The principal aim of this research is to test the assumption that university professors still display traditional teaching styles and whether any of the seven factors that define their teaching styles are learner-centred
It can be seen that respondents regardless of the faculty background and gender strongly support the teachercentred teaching style with arithmetic mean considerably lower than 146 (MFASS = 120,53, MFEBA = 115,63, MFENS = 112,96, MMALE = 115,76, MFEMALE = 115,07)
Summary
High Level Group for the Modernisation of Higher Education, which was invited by the 2010-2014 European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth “to set out recommendations on enhancing higher education” [1], recommends the adoption of the learner-centred instruction model. There is a risk that if such training is not carefully designed, it may inadvertently employ teacher-centred instruction, which would have the effect of paradoxically undermining the philosophical basis of the learner-centred teaching model. The paper will compare university professors’ teaching styles across gender and faculty types.
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