How Do College Students Describe Great Teachers?

With two coauthors, I have completed a draft manuscript describing the results of personal interviews and questionnaires providing us with an illustration of how college students describe great college teachers. The best part of the paper is Figure 2, which is a diagram illustrating the attributes of great college teachers, the consequences of those attributes that students desire, and the terminal values driving the preferences.

The full manuscript can be downloaded at http://asp.okstate.edu/baileynorwood/Bailey/filesnb/Final%20Paper.pdf.

The abstract is below. A collection of similar articles can be found at the Effective Teaching and Advising link at http://asp.okstate.edu/baileynorwood/Bailey/BaileyNorwood.htm.

The Attributes and Attribute-Consequences of Great College Teachers

by Mary Wilson, Carol Cook, and Bailey Norwood

Very Short Abstract

In personal interviews and questionnaires, students describe great college teachers as those who are dynamic lecturers, clear communicators, and make sincere efforts to relay their concern for students and student learning. Driving these preferences is students' desire to commit to class, improve class focus, and learn the material.