Criteria Of Effective Teaching Research Articles

A commentary on the criteria of effective teaching in post-COVID higher education

ABSTRACT An article published in Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) in 2010 titled, ‘The criteria of effective teaching in a changing higher education context’ argued that an effective university teacher needs to have specific skills and practices that are applicable to a particular context. The article is one of HERD’s most downloaded articles and continues to be highly cited over a decade later. However, since this article was published, there have been significant global and other changes that have impacted on higher education. Much complexity, change and ambiguity challenge the sector, including through: widening participation and increased student diversity; increasing accountability; the growth of transnational education; digital transformation; the rise of data analytics; evolving assessment philosophy and practice; work-integrated learning; the students as partners movement; the trend away from solo teaching; and new pedagogies for an unknown future. These shifts have taken place in a broader context of profound global changes including: changing economic powers and global political tensions; prevailing societal inequalities; climate change and the resulting environmental and ecological damage that puts human existence at risk; and significantly changing social norms. The global pandemic has contributed a further layer of chaos and uncertainty, including in terms of the meaning of effective higher education teaching. The article argues that given this new context, the criteria that have so successfully defined effective teaching to date now need to be re-interrogated, reconsidered, revised, and updated.

Impact of Classroom Behavior of Faculty on Academic Performance of Engineering Students

Teachers and their strategies of teaching play a very vital role in making the student a successful engineer in this very competitive world .The article thus focuses on how teaching engineering can be done effectively by studying the class room behavior of faculty. This new line of research will generate important findings that are of practical implications for teacher education and will examine multiple criteria of effective teaching in terms of classroom behavior variables and their relationship with the academic performance of the students taught by that faculty. Thus, creating better faculty and better engineers in future is the primary benefit for the society from this research paper.

The Nebulous, Essential Dimensions in Effective University Teaching: The Ethic of Care and Relational Acumen

This paper examines the interrelationships between teaching beliefs and approaches, instructional design, relationships with students, and academics’ and students’ perceptions of effective teaching and learning. Mixed methodology was utilised and included interviews with academics and students, and questionnaires, inventories, and learning journals. As anticipated educationally optimal instructional design was appreciated by academics and students, however, it was not the most significant aspect in influencing students’ perceptions of ‘good’ or effective teaching. Differences were found between two teaching academics’ beliefs about students and these translated into varied approaches to teaching, interactions with students, and different capacities to establish positive classroom environments and relationships. Academics’ ethic of care and relational acumen were the pivotal components in students’ criteria for effective teaching, which may present a quandary to academic developers. Findings indicate the importance of relational acumen and an ethic of care and may also have significance for university leaders in matching academic teaching activities to faculty strengths and potentially explaining negative student feedback in well-designed units.

Intrument for Evaluating Didactical Performance of Clinical Skill Laboratory Teachers

Background: There are some studies about strategies for clinical skills teachers and criteria for effective teaching in a Skills lab. However, there isn’t an established instrument yet to evaluate clinical skills teacher’s didactical performance while facilitating skills learning. The aim of this study was to develop an appropriate instrument to evaluate clinical skills teachers’ didactical performance.Method: A preliminary instrument was developed based on recent available literatures. This instrument was applied by students, to quantitatively evaluate didactical performance of skills teachers who teach a certain skill. Then focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted. The results of both procedures were compared.Results: 255 first year medical students participated (response rate: 91%). There was significant difference between students’ judgments of clinical teacher’s (specialist) and Skills lab teacher’s (general practitioner) didactical performance (p<0.05). Cronbach’s alpha of the instrument turned out to be .95, indicating a high homogeneity. All items contributed to this measure of reliability. This quantitative finding was supported by qualitative resultsConclusion: The questionnaire developed is valid and reliable. It can be concluded that characteristics of a proper instrument for evaluating clinical skills teachers’ didactical performance encompass didactic skill, interpersonal & communication skills and condition/strategy of skills training.

Use of student ratings to benchmark universities: Multilevel modeling of responses to the Australian Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ).

Recently graduated university students from all Australian Universities rate their overall departmental and university experiences (DUEs), and their responses (N = 44,932, 41 institutions) are used by the government to benchmark departments and universities. We evaluate this DUE strategy of rating overall departments and universities rather than individual teachers, and we juxtapose it with the traditional use of student ratings to evaluate individual teachers (SETs). Multilevel analyses of DUE overall ratings were not able to discriminate well between universities or departments--few universities or departments differed significantly from the grand mean. Although the a priori 5-factor structure for this DUE instrument was reasonably well-defined at the individual student level, none of the 5 factors separately or in combination discriminated well between departments or universities. In contrast to this pattern of results, we review studies showing that SETs do reliably differentiate between teachers and are valid in relation to many criteria of effective teaching. However, casual reviews of these research literatures should not use this support for SETs to justify the use of DUE-type strategies. We conclude that DUE-type ratings should be used with great caution, if at all, and should not be seen as an alternative to SETs

Assessing Educational Effectiveness: Policy Implications from Diverse Areas of Research*

AbstractIn England, school league tables – based on student scores on standardised tests – are used extensively by policymakers and parents as one of the key measures of secondary school effectiveness. Here, we briefly review the English contextual value added (E‐CVA) model used to construct league tables of school effectiveness and juxtapose it with studies that focus on teacher effectiveness, other criteria of educational effectiveness and effectiveness at the university level. Methodologically, we consider the fragility of causal inferences based on psychometric and econometric value added models, and new multilevel models that take into account measurement and sampling error. Value added models largely ignore measurement error which systematically biases the outcomes, but both measurement and sampling error can be incorporated into doubly‐latent models that integrate multilevel and latent variable approaches. The E‐CVA model focuses on school effects and ignores teacher effects. However, research on both secondary schools and universities shows that there is little variance at the school or university level, but much more at the teacher level. E‐CVA models consider test scores as the only indicator of effectiveness; there is little emphasis on other indicators of effectiveness, tests of the construct validity of test scores as a measure of effectiveness in relation to other indicators, or formative evaluations to improve effectiveness. Research on university students' ratings of teachers incorporates a broader perspective to construct validation: multidimensional factor structure, reliability/stability, relations with multiple criteria of effective teaching, and interventions to improve teaching. Both areas of research could learn from the other, and many strategies from the higher‐education literature could be incorporated into the literature on educational effectiveness at the primary‐ and secondary‐school levels.

The criteria of effective teaching in a changing higher education context

The criteria of effective teaching in higher education are understood to comprise particular skills and practices applied within particular contexts. Drawing on the literature and using Australia’s understanding of effective teaching, this paper examines the notion of effective teaching. The paper specifically compares dimensions derived from robust research and psychometric processes with the Australian Learning and Teaching Council’s criteria for effective teaching and observes the criteria of effective teaching in higher education to have evolved. While the paper suggests some areas in which future considerations of the notion of effective teaching might usefully focus, it also argues that context is critical and that it is subject to continuous and multiple changes imposed by forces from within and outside universities. The paper maintains that our collective understanding of competent, professional and effective teaching must continually evolve in order that it accurately reflects and continually responds to the contexts in which learning and teaching is undertaken. The paper also calls for an ongoing agenda that continuously investigates and articulates the meaning of effective teaching in a changed, and changing, context.

Evaluating teaching practice

The evaluation of observed lessons has been the subject of much debate in the field of teacher training. Teacher trainers have tried to define quality in relation to teaching and to find ways to measure it in a reliable way. Can we evaluate the quality of teaching by observable behaviour and measurable components, in which case, can the lesson be assessed analytically by the use of discrete criteria? Or, does a lesson constitute an entity, which cannot be broken into discrete components so that it has to be assessed impressionistically? We believe that in order to construct a more comprehensive view of the issue, it is pertinent to collaborate with our trainees and provide some space for their voices. Evidence from a small-scale practitioner-based research project reveals that trainees need explicit criteria for effective teaching in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses and use them as guidelines for improvement.

Laptops in class: What are they good for? What can you do with them?

AbstractThis chapter describes Clemson University's Laptop Faculty Development Program and its assessment, offering the program as one model for designing faculty development to successfully implement laptop mandates. The chapter also acquaints readers with the many types of in‐class, laptop‐based activities that meet best‐practice criteria for effective teaching.

The language learner as teacher: the use of interactive diaries in teacher training

This article describes the piloting of interactive learner/trainee diaries as part of a short pre-service teacher training course. The outcome of the experiment suggests that the formal inclusion of adult learners in the training process provides trainees with access to essential information about the learning process, learner criteria for effective teaching, and the importance of affective factors in ensuring a mutually rewarding teaching encounter. It is suggested that, by listening to learners' voices, trainees can begin to see their learners as educators with a valuable contribution to make to their development as teachers.

Making students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness effective: The critical issues of validity, bias, and utility.

This article reviews research indicating that, under appropriate conditions, students' evaluations of teaching (SETs) are (a) multidimensional; (b) reliable and stable; (c) primarily a function of the instructor who teaches a course rather than the course that is taught; (d) relatively valid against a variety of indicators of effective teaching; (e) relatively unaffected by a variety of variables hypothesized as potential biases (e.g., grading leniency, class size, workload, prior subject interest); and (f) useful in improving teaching effectiveness when SETS are coupled with appropriate consultation. The authors recommend rejecting a narrow criterion-related approach to validity and adopting a broad construct-validation approach, recognizing that effective teaching and SETs that reflect teaching effectiveness are multidimensional; no single criterion of effective teaching is sufficient; and tentative interpretations of relations with validity criteria and potential biases should be evaluated critically in different contexts, in relation to multiple criteria of effective teaching, theory, and existing knowledge.

Evaluation of teaching: a review of the literature.

Although most faculty members would agree that teaching is a vital component of their role, the evaluation of teaching continues to receive less attention than the evaluation of other academic pursuits. This paper reviews the nursing and education literature related to the evaluation of teaching. The bulk of the literature reviewed focused on the following: current issues of faculty evaluation, appraisal criteria of effective teaching, and evaluators of teaching effectiveness. The paucity of literature related to the process of faculty evaluation provides further evidence that there is a gap between what institutions say is important and what is actually practised. The implementation of faculty evaluation models may be one remedy to this current problem.

Effective Teaching as Construed by Social Work Students

Abstract This paper discusses social work students' personal impressions of teaching effectiveness. As an alternative instrument to the traditionally used questionnaire, Kelly's (1955) repertory grid was used for eliciting and evaluating the criteria for effective teaching held by four undergraduate students. It is suggested that the repertory grid technique is a powerful heuristic tool for investigating teaching effectiveness in social work education.

The state of research on university teaching effectiveness

AbstractThe current state of research on effective teaching is cause for hope but exasperating in the number of questions still to be answered. What are the criteria of effective teaching? Can we rely on current measures of teaching effectiveness? Is an enlightened policy for evaluating teaching possible?.

Using Criteria of Effective Teaching To Judge Teacher Performance

After determining what good teaching is, list the criteria that will be used to judge how teachers perform in their classrooms. This is the thrust of the model described here.

The Realities of Faculty Performance Evaluation

Myths which surround the subject of faculty per formance evaluatio in he university draw com ments and opinions from many sources as the yearly process occurs. Administrators dictate that some form of evaluation has a place in higher education. Dressel (1964) states that evaluation is inseparable from in struction in learning. Mayhew (1967) observes that along the education continuum only higher education seems to presume itself exempt from evaluation. Even when the premise that such evaluation must take place is accepted, the method to be employed often is not. Interestingly, a comparison of administrative/ non-administrative perceptions of the criteria for effec tive teaching and its evaluation are in agreement (Hus sian & Leestamper, 1968). Evaluation is more than simply a process to identify effective teaching. Neeley (1968) declares evaluation in higher education to be the end result of a hierarchy of pressures. Administra tors pressure boards or legislatures for more money, and these groups in turn demand evaluation as substan tiation for continuing allocation of funds. Current prac tices in evaluation as reported by Astin and Galvin (1966) indicate that the most frequent determinants of evaluation of faculty members are: the department chairman or dean, followed by colleagues, scholarly re search and publications, and informal student oipnion. It was found that in university settings the research component becomes even more heavily weighted. The focus of this study was to determine the efficacy of this research component in faculty performance evaluation by investigating answers to the following questions:

Student Ratings as Criteria for Effective Teaching

Considerable concern has been generated in many quarters about the use of student ratings as criteria for effective teaching. In the present study, a rating instrument was administered to students in a multi-section beginning language course. “Across-” and “between-sections” data were studied for generalizability and validity. The results indicated that student ratings overlap with one of the principal criteria of teaching effectiveness, namely, class-room achievement, yet possess a unique component. Ramifications of the “across” and “between” distinction were explored.

Student Ratings as Criteria for Effective Teaching

Considerable concern has been generated in many quarters about the use of student ratings as criteria for effective teaching. In the present study, a rating instrument was administered to students in a multi-section beginning language course. “Across-” and “between-sections” data were studied for generalizability and validity. The results indicated that student ratings overlap with one of the principal criteria of teaching effectiveness, namely, class-room achievement, yet possess a unique component. Ramifications of the “across” and “between” distinction were explored.

Adult Teacher Self-Improvement Through Evaluation By Students

Student groups on several campuses have procured student evalua tions of instructors and made these results available to other students for a fee. The charge against student ratings of this sort is that they are not carefully obtained and in too many instances reflect an inaccurate appraisal. However, student evaluation of teaching, properly obtained, has been found to be positively cor related with other criteria of effective teaching and may be con sidered a useful device for teacher self-improvement. This article reports data obtained when the writer administered student evalua tion rating forms to adult students in graduate classes. Attention is called to variability in student response, as well as suggested in terpretations of the information obtained. A copy of the evalua tion form is appended.

Criteria for Effective Teaching

Criteria for Effective Teaching