In this decade, the drive to improve the quality of learning environments at all
levels has gathered pace, and accountability of providers has become a byword,
particularly in secondary and tertiary educational institutions. In this process of
meeting societal needs, the teacher's role is crucial to the provision of optimal
conditions for learning. Teachers' adaptation to the changing clientele and
technologies of the 1990's, also demands their flexibility and preparedness to
contemplate anew their role in the learning transaction.
Gage (1963) posed three topical questions about teaching: how do teachers
behave, why do they behave as they do and what are the effects of their
behaviour? The information gained by examining three types of variables, is
required to answer these questions, the most central to research on teaching, is
teaching behaviour, or the process of teaching. Secondly, there are the causes or
determinants of those behaviours or processes and finally, there are the effects or
consequences of the teaching behaviours or processes (Dunkin,1986).
This research into teaching behaviours, conducted in three institutes of Technical
and Further Education in the A.C.T., seeks to determine the quality of teaching
for adult learners and the nature of the learning environment in TAFE. The
design of the study incorporates comprehensive multi-variate instruments and a
triangulating approach to data collection. In particular, a factor analysis of
student questionnaires evaluates the main factors operant in the classrooms of the
selected tertiary environments. The nature of the teaching behaviours and the
contingent learning climate, enabled further conclusions to be drawn about the
implications of these behaviours for adult learners eg. teacher expectancies, not
found hitherto evaluated in a tertiary context.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218696 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Freeman, Maureen, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Maureen Freeman |
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