University students and their perception of teaching effectiveness. Effects on students’ engagement

Abstract

This paper is based on a teacher effectiveness model with six teaching behaviour domains (safe learning climate, efficient classroom management, clarity of instruction, activating teaching, differentiation, and teaching–learning strategies). The main purpose was to examine university students’ perceptions of teaching effectiveness and its influence on students’ academic engagement. The sample comprised 782 students from 16 universities. Data was collected using a transversal design and the instruments My Teacher Questionnaire and the Academic Engagement Scale, both using Likert-type response formats and adapted to the study population. The findings suggest differences regarding teacher gender and type of course: students perceived their male teachers as better, and there were more positive perceptions of teachers in arts and humanities, social and legal sciences, and health sciences courses. With respect to student engagement, the results confirmed the predictive power of the effective classroom management, activating teaching and differentiation domains. The percentage of explained variance was greater for emotional engagement than for behavioural engagement. This kind of study gives us very interesting information which can help to identify the aspects of higher education that need to be reinforced and in contrast, those about which students already have positive perceptions.