Perceived Attributes of Superior Teachers (PAST): An Inquiry into the Giving of Teacher Awards

Abstract

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.

Student written comments: Dimensions of instructional quality.

“…Stimulation was the most highly correlated dimension with overall teaching ability; enthusiasm, knowledge of subject matter, preparation, organization of material, and clarity were also highly associated with overall teaching ability. Based on student and faculty comments for nominations of outstanding teachers, Goldsmid, Gruber, and Wilson (1977) identified two general traits: competence (command of the material) and conscientiousness (concern for students' achievement.) However, there has not been an analysis of written comments of students who complete a rating form administered during the latter part of a course.…”

Winning an External Teaching Award in Higher Education: Teacher Identity and Recipient Characteristics

“…The participating faculty members expressed that they care about doing a good job and feel a sense of obligation toward their students. This sense of duty motivates them to seek out literature from SoTL, conduct formative and summative assessments with their students, adopt student-centered classrooms, and participate in professional development activities to enhance their classroom effectiveness, actions in alignment with superior teaching through continued growth (Goldsmid et al, 1977;Lang et al, 2010;Maxwell et al, 2011). These results indicate that teaching awards recognize good practice, validating efforts rather than serving as an impetus to transform methods or examine practices.…”

Antecedents of Job Performance of Tourism Graduates: Evidence from State University-Graduated Employees in Sri Lanka

“…The question has been asked various times and has been defined from many different alternative views. Although there is no clearly definitive answer to the question, there are some generally accepted characteristics of "good" academics and teaching situations: enthusiasm, knowledge of the subject area, stimulation of interest in the subject area, organization, clarity, concern and caring for students, use of higher cognitive levels in discussions and examinations, use of visual aids, encouragement of active learning and student discussion, provision of feedback, and avoidance of harsh criticism (Feldman, 1976(Feldman, , 1988Goldsmid, Gruber, & Wilson, 1977). In a previous study, researchers assessed the quality of faculty members according to achievements in education, training, research, and scholarship (Arimoto, Gregg, Nagata, Miki, & Murashima, 2012).…”