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Student Perceptions of Instructor Supportiveness: What Characteristics Make a Difference?

The use of active learning in the undergraduate biology classroom improves student learning and classroom equity, but its use can lead to student anxiety. Instructors can reduce student anxiety through practices that convey supportiveness and valuing of students. We collected students’ ratings of th...

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Autores principales: Schussler, Elisabeth E., Weatherton, Maryrose, Chen Musgrove, Miranda M., Brigati, Jennifer R., England, Benjamin J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Cell Biology 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8734384/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33938766
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-10-0238
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author Schussler, Elisabeth E.
Weatherton, Maryrose
Chen Musgrove, Miranda M.
Brigati, Jennifer R.
England, Benjamin J.
author_facet Schussler, Elisabeth E.
Weatherton, Maryrose
Chen Musgrove, Miranda M.
Brigati, Jennifer R.
England, Benjamin J.
author_sort Schussler, Elisabeth E.
collection PubMed
description The use of active learning in the undergraduate biology classroom improves student learning and classroom equity, but its use can lead to student anxiety. Instructors can reduce student anxiety through practices that convey supportiveness and valuing of students. We collected students’ ratings of their classroom anxiety and perceptions of their instructors’ supportiveness, as well as open-response reasons for their ratings, in six large introductory biology classes. These data confirmed a negative relationship between student anxiety and student perceptions of their instructors’ support. We used qualitative analysis to identify themes of instructor support and how these themes varied between instructors rated as providing higher or lower support by their students. Two instructors with higher-support ratings and two with lower-support ratings were selected for analyses. Inductive qualitative coding identified five themes of instructor support: relational (perception of caring/approachability), instrumental (offering resources), pedagogical (quality of teaching), personality, and uncertain (not sure of support). Higher-support instructors had more positive relational themes and fewer negative pedagogical themes compared with lower-support instructors. These results can be used to enhance supportive classroom practices, which may be one mechanism to reduce student anxiety.
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spelling pubmed-87343842022-01-10 Student Perceptions of Instructor Supportiveness: What Characteristics Make a Difference? Schussler, Elisabeth E. Weatherton, Maryrose Chen Musgrove, Miranda M. Brigati, Jennifer R. England, Benjamin J. CBE Life Sci Educ Articles The use of active learning in the undergraduate biology classroom improves student learning and classroom equity, but its use can lead to student anxiety. Instructors can reduce student anxiety through practices that convey supportiveness and valuing of students. We collected students’ ratings of their classroom anxiety and perceptions of their instructors’ supportiveness, as well as open-response reasons for their ratings, in six large introductory biology classes. These data confirmed a negative relationship between student anxiety and student perceptions of their instructors’ support. We used qualitative analysis to identify themes of instructor support and how these themes varied between instructors rated as providing higher or lower support by their students. Two instructors with higher-support ratings and two with lower-support ratings were selected for analyses. Inductive qualitative coding identified five themes of instructor support: relational (perception of caring/approachability), instrumental (offering resources), pedagogical (quality of teaching), personality, and uncertain (not sure of support). Higher-support instructors had more positive relational themes and fewer negative pedagogical themes compared with lower-support instructors. These results can be used to enhance supportive classroom practices, which may be one mechanism to reduce student anxiety. American Society for Cell Biology 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8734384/ /pubmed/33938766 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-10-0238 Text en © 2021 E. E. Schussler et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2021 The American Society for Cell Biology. “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License.
spellingShingle Articles
Schussler, Elisabeth E.
Weatherton, Maryrose
Chen Musgrove, Miranda M.
Brigati, Jennifer R.
England, Benjamin J.
Student Perceptions of Instructor Supportiveness: What Characteristics Make a Difference?
title Student Perceptions of Instructor Supportiveness: What Characteristics Make a Difference?
title_full Student Perceptions of Instructor Supportiveness: What Characteristics Make a Difference?
title_fullStr Student Perceptions of Instructor Supportiveness: What Characteristics Make a Difference?
title_full_unstemmed Student Perceptions of Instructor Supportiveness: What Characteristics Make a Difference?
title_short Student Perceptions of Instructor Supportiveness: What Characteristics Make a Difference?
title_sort student perceptions of instructor supportiveness: what characteristics make a difference?
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8734384/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33938766
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-10-0238
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