We examined the conferring of distinguished teaching awards, a social device to help sustain professed group values. A content analysis located 2900 statements (made by 978 students and faculty, at UNC-Chapel Hill, in support of their nominees) in 35 categories. The imputed attributes of superior teachers described, chiefly, teaching techniques. Far fewer personal and professional traits were mentioned. The optimum set of traits imputed to superior teachers combines command of subject matter, concern for student and techniques for conveying that competence and conscientiousness. To understand more about factors making for superior teaching, we compared certain background characteristics of rank award-winner and placers (N = 60) with 60 controls. We also explored relationships between nominee rank and various personal and contextual characteristics and factors affecting student-teacher interaction, jointly and separately considered in regression analysis.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.