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Teaching styles and student interest: three cases.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

This article presents the results of a study comparing teaching styles and student motivation. Three history classes, all high school juniors, and three teachers, each with a different teaching style, were the study group participants. The author proposed assessment instruments for measuring teacher effectiveness and student motivation and, together with a paid observer, collected data over a twelve-week period to supplement the data gathered from the assessment instruments. Teacher effectiveness increased with practices that students identified as engendering interest and motivation.

Introduction and Literature review

Case studies are excellent vehicles for generating new hypotheses and new ways of framing old questions. (Merriam, 1988; Yin, 1994; Stake, 1995; Pass, 2004/2005). This article will use a selected-sample of one student teacher, one first-year teacher, and one veteran teacher in order to document their classroom impact upon their students' perceptions of 1) their teaching effectiveness and 2) their ability to increase their students' interest/motivation/sense of value in learning the subject

According to John McMillan, the basic principle that guides the assessment of teachers is that it is a process of professional judgment that uses good assessment (2000). One prerequisite to teacher effectiveness is that the students perceive the teacher as acting in a positive way towards them. This is especially true among minority students and will most likely occur when students are involved in hands-on, inquiry instruction (Payne, 1994; Leonard, 2003). Among regular and gifted students, teacher behaviors such as humor, confidence, showing respect for students, and being creative have been correlated with high ratings of teacher effectiveness (Worrell & Kuterbach, 2001).

"Research on teacher behaviors that actively promote student intrinsic motivation to learn has been relatively scarce." (Patrick, 2002, p. 1) Those teacher factors resulting in good student motivation are: teaching skill, organizational structure, teacher-student rapport, challenging curriculum, and fair grading and prompt feedback (Hammons, 1999). In a study between a traditional and a constructivist approach in the classroom, the students rated the constructivist approach teacher higher because of the active instructional approach (Byer & Dana-Wesley, 1999). But even with a constructivist approach, students must still have self-motivation and teachers, of course, must be dedicated to excellence. "In an ideal school, all students' potential would be maximized to the fullest, diversity among both students and teachers would be highly valued, and opportunities for growth would be created by well-prepared teachers." (Obiakor, F., 2000)

Procedures

As Robert Bogdan and Sari Bilden explained in 2002, the essence of case study methodology is triangulation (i.e., the combination of different levels of technique, methods and strategies). Upon receiving permission of the teachers, their students, and the students' parents, I spent at least one day a week observing the classes. For the twelve weeks, I paid an observer to visit the first year and veteran teachers' classes once a week (the student teacher had a cooperating teacher in the classroom who volunteered). I trained both the paid observer and cooperating teacher in data collection.

Data Sources

Data were obtained by a variety of methods. Each teacher maintained a daily log and wrote a philosophy of education. Questionnaires were filled out by teachers on their teaching strategies and verified by their students. Each student in the three...

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