4.3 How Can Teaching Groups be Characterised?
4.3.1 Teaching Group Types
While conducting the focus groups and analysing the transcripts, three types of teaching groups seemed to emerge.
• Tight-knit groups: Groups with a highly collegial atmosphere, whose members interact frequently on a variety of issues around teaching, inclusive of pedagogy;
• Functioning groups: Groups that have put structures in place that get members together for scheduled interaction on teaching, focusing mainly on organisational teaching matters and attempting some shared learning or problem solving;
• Individualistic groups: Groups whose members largely work as individ- uals, where interaction on teaching is prompted by problems, where little passion is shown for teaching.
Two approaches were followed to establish if these teaching group types could be substantiated and the teaching groups of participants be associated with these types. The first approach was holistic and involved focusing on the contributions of each participant in turn. The second approach was based on the definition of key factors, which are introduced in this section. Values were extracted for the teaching groups of the participants for each key factor and associations with the teaching group types made.
For the holistic approach, each focus group transcript was reread in one piece, focusing specifically on one participant at a time. From the impressions gained, the participant’s teaching group was associated with a particular teaching group type. As some participants identified themselves as belonging to two teaching groups, this could link a participant to more than one group type. For most participants, the association could be determined with high confidence. For some participants, the association was less certain, which was indicated with a lower confidence value. In cases where not enough information on the teaching group of the participant was available, no association was made. Appendix K shows the mapping of participants’ teaching groups to teaching group types.
The mapping resulted in an even number of tight-knit and individualistic teaching groups (10 each) and found a small number of functioning teaching groups (4). The pressures on academics to conduct both teaching and research have come out strongly in all focus groups. It is, therefore, to be expected that a teaching group whose members do not undertake research can focus more fully on teaching and that this will have an influence on their type of teaching group. If the teaching-only teaching groups are excluded from the comparison, the bal- ance of teaching groups changes to ten individualistic, seven tight-knit and four functioning teaching groups.
Using the holistic approach, the teaching groups of the majority of partici- pants could be associated with teaching group types with high confidence. This indicates that the types identified are a good starting point for the classification of teaching groups.
The definition of key factors for the classification of teaching groups into teaching group types focused mainly on internal characteristics of teaching groups. Outside influences and generic university characteristics, affecting more or less all academics and teaching groups, are looked at in detail in Section 4.4. The following key factors for classification of teaching groups were identified based on the focus group data:
• Initiation of interaction: Part of the interaction in teaching groups hap- pens in form of organised meetings that address the whole group or sub- groups. These meeting are called for by a group leader or someone leading a specific initiative. This is complemented by interactions initiated by indi- vidual group members, who deliberately interact with other group members, in form of organised meetings or via change interactions.
• Participation in interaction: This is about how many of the members of a teaching group commonly participate in interactions organised for the group. In some groups, the majority of members participate, in others, participation is limited to small sub-groups, composed of again and again the same academics. Participation also relates to being part of chance interactions.
• Reasons for interaction: The need to organise teaching is a common reason for interaction. This includes deciding who teaches which course or component of a course, which topics are covered in which sequence, how contact hours are used, how internal and end-of-semester assessment are distributed, how equivalence is achieved or how a new e-learning system is to be used. A further reason for interaction is in reaction to problems, maybe caused by complaints or indicated by negative feedback as part of teaching evaluations. A third reason lies in striving for improvements. Examples for this are interactions to evaluate the effectiveness of aspects of teaching, to discuss how to best teach a concept or cohort, to work out how to engage students, or to reflect on teaching.
• Atmosphere within group: Some teaching groups have a trusting and open atmosphere. In these groups members feel safe to talk about problems and less positive experiences with their teaching. They feel comfortable to seek advice. They also know that they can raise teaching issues and will find willing partners to explore such issues. Other groups have a reserved and protective atmosphere. In these groups members are reluctant to ad- mit having a problem around teaching. Teaching is regarded as something private between academic and students, with colleagues having little to no insight. Suggestions of interactions about teaching carry the risk of been seen as accusations indicating problems.
• Perception of importance of teaching: In some groups, teaching is seen as a second class activity that has lower value than research. Performance in research is regarded more important than performance in teaching. If teaching is done to a satisfactory standard, possibly measured by the lack of complaints, then this is sufficient and no more energy needs to be invested. In other groups, academics see an intrinsic value in teaching which motivates
them to strife for ongoing improvements and to deliver the best possible teaching for students.
These key factors can be related to the three teaching group types. The impression from the focus group conversations was that all teaching groups fulfill their teaching obligations and therefore all teaching groups conduct organised interactions to sort out organisational teaching issues and address problems. In individualistic teaching groups there is little interaction initiated by individuals. As teaching is seen as a second class activity with little intrinsic value, interaction is responsive to problems and hardly initiated to strive for improvements. The reserved and protective atmosphere makes chance interactions about teaching unlikely.
In functioning teaching groups the majority of members will participate in organised interaction. There is some striving for improvement, largely as part of organised interactions, sometimes within sub-groups and initiated by subgroup leaders. While research might still be seen as the more valuable activity, effort is being put into teaching.
In tight-knit teaching groups there is a strong drive to improve teaching. This both stems from and is nurtured by the intrinsic value of teaching and the familiar atmosphere within the group. Members trust each other and can share problems and issues openly. Interaction is organised if required, but in addition, there is frequent chance interaction. All members contribute most of the time.
To complete the second approach for identifying teaching group types for the teaching groups of participants, all focus group data were re-read with the aim of finding values for the key factors. This was only done for the focus group participants for whom teaching group types could be defined in the first holistic approach. Insufficient information was available for the other participants.
Choosing one participant as an example, Table 4.2 shows the values iden- tified for the key factors for the teaching group of participant P1. The table also provides quotes from the participant to help justify the values chosen. De- termining the values for the parameters was challenging in places and required several judgement calls. As the key factors had been developed in response to the analysis of the focus group data, the participants could not have been asked directly about these factors. It was hard to decide to which degree something happens or applies. This resulted in largely using ‘Yes’ instead of indicating de- grees of agreement. At times, it was difficult to distinguish if participants just
talked about themselves or about the members of their group. Further, partic- ipants made statements referring to the wider situation at the University or in academia, without necessarily clarifying the situation within their group. Only in a few case there were clear negative statements that suggested a ‘No’ response. As not every focus group participant did address every issue, there are a number of gaps in the values for the parameters. For some academics it was difficult to talk about the types of interactions within their groups or the atmosphere in which these interactions are carried out, as little interaction takes place.
Table 4.2: Values for key factors for the teaching group of focus group participant P1
Key factor Parameters Values Quotes
Initiation of interaction Organised interaction Self-initiated interaction By chance interaction Yes Yes Yes
all of us are constantly sort of having conversations and working quite closely as a group
we have regular conversations about not just what we’re teaching but also how we go about teaching it
we are getting a lot of feedback through formal and informal evaluation
it certainly encourages me to be much more aware of what I do in terms of my teaching knowing that the other people in the programme are also keen and enthusiastic and committed to the teaching side as well
Participation in interaction
Selected few only Majority – Yes Reasons for interaction Organising teaching Reaction to problems Striving for improvements Yes Yes Yes Atmosphere within group
Trusting and open Reserved and protective Yes – Perception of importance of teaching
Second class activity Intrinsic value
– Yes
The next challenge was to map the key factor values identified for the teaching groups against the three teaching group types. Questions posed themselves, such as how many values have to agree, how exact this agreement has to be, how much power lies in a disagreement, how much weight does each parameter carry, and how to deal with missing values. The mapping arrived at teaching group types that present general agreement with the teaching group types determined in the holistic approach. While there are many gaps for values, there are no contradictory data. It is, therefore, suggested that the two approaches of arriving at the classification of teaching groups into types are compatible and that the
teaching group types and the key factors suggested are suitable starting points for further investigations.