Defining and Assessing College Teaching - Diagnosis and Prognosis: A Message From the Guest Editor
Abstract
The five articles contained in this issue of the Journal overlap to a certain degree, but they can be classified as follows: Two studies explore specific aspects of teaching and learning, two studies examine perceptions of effectiveness, and one study focuses on student ratings of the effectiveness of instruction. In every case, there is a good deal of previous research that has established some weight of evidence either supporting or, in some cases, contradicting the bases for these studies. But it is this point that stands out for me as a guest editor because much of that "established research" on college teaching and the evaluation of instruction is more than two decades old. It is necessary regularly to revisit social science research in order to see whether (even) well-established findings remain viable under new sets of conditions. Paradigm changes in higher education such as evolving demographics, new expectations, and the flood of new technologies have resulted in teaching and learning situations quite different from those studied in traditional classrooms between mid-century and the late 1980s. Are values different? Do students learn and do teachers teach in ways so different that we must disregard past work, or does the vast reservoir of scholarship still inform our basic understanding of teaching and learning? Ongoing examination of these issues is critical to best practice and makes the contributions in this issue welcome.
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