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Teaching Style Beliefs Among U.S. and Israeli Faculty
Author(s) -
BeharHorenstein Linda S.,
Mitchell Gail S.,
Notzer Netta,
Penfield Randy,
Eli Ilana
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of dental education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.53
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1930-7837
pISSN - 0022-0337
DOI - 10.1002/j.0022-0337.2006.70.8.tb04151.x
Subject(s) - preference , construct (python library) , psychology , style (visual arts) , mathematics education , subject matter , dental education , teaching method , pedagogy , medical education , medicine , curriculum , computer science , archaeology , microeconomics , economics , history , programming language
The purpose of this study was to determine if self‐reported teaching style beliefs were different among faculty at a U.S. and an Israeli dental school. Teacher‐centered practices refer to beliefs that the teacher holds the subject matter expertise and students are generally passive learners who must be told what to think. Student‐centered practices refer to beliefs that students must learn how to construct their own understanding. Student‐centered teaching is directed towards enabling students to think about complex issues. Twenty‐seven of fifty‐eight (47.37 percent) faculty at a dental school in the United States and thirty of thirty‐four (88 percent) Israeli dental faculty teaching in basic science courses completed the Teaching Behavior Preferences Survey (TBPS). The TBPS is a thirty‐item instrument that measures two domains of teaching styles—teacher‐centered (TC) and student‐centered (SC)—and four subdomains: methods of instruction (MI), classroom milieu (CM), use of questions (UQ), and use of assessment (UA). Findings revealed that there were no significant differences in student‐centered and teacher‐centered teaching practices and methods of instruction, classroom milieu, and use of questions. There was a significant difference between the U.S. and Israeli groups in their reported use of assessment. The U.S. faculty reported a greater preference for student‐centered assessment practices than did the Israeli faculty.