Teaching methods and student personality ? The search for an elusive interaction

Abstract

Decades of research at the tertiary level have produced the finding that the use of different teaching methods makes no difference to student learning when end-ofcourse examination performance is accepted as the criterion of such learning. This conclusion has been based on a comparison between the average mark gained by groups of subjects taught in different ways. The present article takes the position that the use of such mean scores serves to conceal individual variability, and hypothesizes that it is possible to identify personality characteristics likely to predispose a student to perform better under one teaching approach rather than another. A programmatic series of studies using two approaches to personality measurement, purpose-concealed and face-valid, and two instructional approaches, lecturing and independent study, is described culminating in the conclusion that the student likely to perform better under the latter teaching method sees himself as being more tense and anxious than the student likely to perform better under the former method.

6: Effective College Teaching

“…Teachercentered instruction probably provides more task orientation than does student-centered instruction. Thus Dowaliby and Schumer's (1973) finding that teacher-centered instruction optimizes learning for high-anxious students fits with Sarason's results, as does Stanton's (1974) finding that anxious students perform better with lecture than with independent study.…”

Effective teachers’ personality in strengthening character education

“…Theoretical and research literature that discusses personality and learning has been done for almost a century [26]. Among the results in this century was the findings of Stanton in 1974 that students tend to do better under the teaching method, the latter seeing themselves as more tense and anxious than students tending to perform better under the previous method [27]. Next research by Murray and his colleagues in 1990 studied 29 personality traits of teachers in learning at university, among the results were specific personality traits that contributed to effective teaching that were significantly different for different types of courses [28].…”

Relation between students’ personality traits and their preferred teaching methods: Students at the university of Ghana and the Huzhou Normal University

“…[ 65 ], who repeated it, and [ 66 ], who did the same. On the other hand, these latter reviewers expressed optimism that research will be more fruitful shortly [ 67 ]. further claims that no significant difference in exam performance was detected between students taught through a lecture approach and those oriented through a guided reading method in his study.…”

“…When no significant association was established between a student's choice of teaching technique and his examination performance after being taught by that approach, according to Ref. [ 67 ], Stanton confirmed that the “no difference” in results from different teaching approaches could be due to crude measurement devices that were unable to identify the true which genuinely exists. Despite this, certain features can distinguish students who prefer to learn through lectures and those who like to learn through guided reading [ 67 ].…”

“…[ 67 ], Stanton confirmed that the “no difference” in results from different teaching approaches could be due to crude measurement devices that were unable to identify the true which genuinely exists. Despite this, certain features can distinguish students who prefer to learn through lectures and those who like to learn through guided reading [ 67 ].…”