Evolving impressions: undergraduate perceptions of graduate teaching assistants and faculty members over a semester

Undergraduate perceptions of graduate teaching assistants: Competence, relatedness, and autonomy in practice

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play a significant role in higher education and in the education of undergraduate students. Previous research suggests that undergraduate students perceive GTAs differently than faculty instructors, but little has been done to explore the nature of those perceptions. This exploratory study uses self-determination theory to investigate how university students describe the effective teaching practices of GTAs and how those descriptions vary depending on GTA gender, GTA international status, and course domain. Findings suggest that the majority of undergraduates described GTAs' competence-supporting practices and that descriptions varied based on GTAs' international status and on course domain. Implications for GTA training are discussed.

A Lesson from the Pandemic: Utilizing Digital Tools To Support Student Engagement during Instructional Assistant-Led Sessions

Student instructional assistants (IAs) are an integral part of most students' college experience in higher education. When properly trained, IAs can improve students' grades, engagement with course content, persistence, and retention. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the transition of nearly all instructional practices online. At the University of Alabama at Birmingham, IAs, including Biology Learning Assistants (BLAs), began hosting their instructional sessions virtually, outside of class time. The goals of these sessions were to reinforce fundamental concepts using active learning strategies and to address student questions by building a supportive learning community. In this article, we summarize the training and guidance we provided to the BLAs regarding how best to adapt digital educational tools to engage students during their virtual sessions. We recommend that institutions of higher education recognize the expansion of digital educational tools as an opportunity to increase the technological literacy and competence of their IAs to best serve their student body in this increasingly digital age of education.

Investigating Instructor Talk among Graduate Teaching Assistants in Undergraduate Biology Laboratory Classrooms

Instructor Talk-noncontent and nonlogistical language that is focused on shaping the classroom learning environment-is a recently defined variable that may play an important role in how undergraduates experience courses. Previous research characterized Instructor Talk used by faculty teaching in biology lecture classrooms. However, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and laboratory classrooms represent critical factors in undergraduate education, and Instructor Talk in this context has yet to be explored. Here, we present findings analyzing Instructor Talk used by GTAs teaching in undergraduate biology laboratory classrooms. We characterized the Instructor Talk used by 22 GTA instructors across 24 undergraduate biology laboratory courses in the context of a single, urban, Hispanic-serving and Asian American and Pacific Islander-serving Institution. We found that Instructor Talk was present in every course studied, GTAs with pedagogical training and prior teaching experience used more Instructor Talk than those without, and GTAs teaching laboratory courses used more Instructor Talk than previous observations of faculty teaching lecture courses. Given the widespread use of Instructor Talk and its varying use across contexts, we predict that Instructor Talk may be a critical variable in teaching, specifically in promoting equity and inclusion, which merits continued study in undergraduate science education.

Does Context Matter? Convergent and Divergent Findings in the Cross-Institutional Evaluation of Graduate Teaching Assistant Professional Development Programs

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play important instructional roles in introductory science courses, yet they often have little training in pedagogy. The most common form of teaching professional development (PD) for GTAs is a presemester workshop held at the course, department, or college level. In this study, we compare the effectiveness of presemester workshops at three northeastern research universities, each of which incorporated scientific teaching as the pedagogical content framework. The comparison of GTA PD program outcomes at three different institutions is intended to test theoretical assertions about the key role of contextual factors in GTA PD efficacy. Pretest and posttest surveys were used to assess changes in GTA teaching self-efficacy and anxiety following the workshops, and an objective test was used to assess pedagogical knowledge. Analysis of pretest/posttest data revealed statistically significant gains in GTA teaching self-efficacy and pedagogical knowledge and reductions in teaching anxiety across sites. Changes in teaching anxiety and self-efficacy, but not pedagogical knowledge, differed by training program. Student ratings of GTAs at two sites showed that students had positive perceptions of GTAs in all teaching dimensions, and relatively small differences in student ratings of GTAs were observed between institutions. Divergent findings for some outcome variables suggest that program efficacy was influenced as hypothesized by contextual factors such as GTA teaching experience.

Pathways over Time: Functional Genomics Research in an Introductory Laboratory Course

National reports have called for the introduction of research experiences throughout the undergraduate curriculum, but practical implementation at many institutions faces challenges associated with sustainability, cost, and large student populations. We describe a novel course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that introduces introductory-level students to research in functional genomics in a 3-credit, multisection laboratory class. In the Pathways over Time class project, students study the functional conservation of the methionine biosynthetic pathway between divergent yeast species. Over the five semesters described in this study, students (N = 793) showed statistically significant and sizable growth in content knowledge (d = 1.85) and in self-reported research methods skills (d = 0.65), experimental design, oral and written communication, database use, and collaboration. Statistical analyses indicated that content knowledge growth was larger for underrepresented minority students and that growth in content knowledge, but not research skills, varied by course section. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that CUREs can support the scientific development of large numbers of students with diverse characteristics. The Pathways over Time project is designed to be sustainable and readily adapted to other institutional settings.

Alternative Realities: Faculty and Student Perceptions of Instructional Practices in Laboratory Courses

Curricular reform efforts depend on our ability to determine how courses are taught and how instructional practices affect student outcomes. In this study, we developed a 30-question survey on inquiry-based learning and assessment in undergraduate laboratory courses that was administered to 878 students in 54 courses (41 introductory level and 13 upper level) from 20 institutions (four community colleges, 11 liberal arts colleges, and five universities, of which four were minority-serving institutions). On the basis of an exploratory factor analysis, we defined five constructs: metacognition, feedback and assessment, scientific synthesis, science process skills, and instructor-directed teaching. Using our refined survey of 24 items, we compared student and faculty perceptions of instructional practices both across courses and across instructors. In general, faculty and student perceptions were not significantly related. Although mean perceptions were often similar, faculty perceptions were more variable than those of students, suggesting that faculty may have more nuanced views than students. In addition, student perceptions of some instructional practices were influenced by their previous experience in laboratory courses and their self-efficacy. As student outcomes, such as learning gains, are ultimately most important, future research should examine the degree to which faculty and student perceptions of instructional practices predict student outcomes in different contexts.