A Comparison of Pedagogical Approaches to Teaching Graduate Students in Educational Administration

Journal of Instructional Psychology, Dec, 1999 by Gwen Schroth, Anita Pankake, Gordon Gates

To examine the responses according to the teaching models, the means of each Family were calculated and then compared according to the value and enjoyment received (see Table 2). The means from the three core courses were calculated separately from those in the two electives.

Table 2 Comparisons of Means and Standard Deviations of Student Responses by Family and Course

            Family                     Value     Enjoyment

            Social                    (*)4.05      3.99
                                         (.73)     (.72)

CORE

SUBJECTS    Information-Processing   (**)4.12       3.26
                                         (.62)      (.71)

            Personal                 (**)4.14       3.58
                                         (.70)      (.87)

            Behavioral               (**)4.70       4.36
            Systems                      (.45)      (.52)

            Social                   (**)4.47       4.52
                                         (.51)      (.49)

ELECTIVES   Information-Processing   (**)4.48       3.84
                                         (.39)      (.68)

            Personal                 (**)4.54       3.86
                                         (.52)      (.96)

(*) Difference between value and enjoyment significant to the .01 level

(**) Difference between value and enjoyment significant to the .001 level

Core Courses For the core subjects, the Behavioral Systems Family was rated as having the highest value as well as providing the most enjoyment to the students. The Social Family received the lowest value ratings but the Information-Processing Family was rated the least enjoyable. Of interest here is the fact that means never fell below the 4.05 level on the 5 point scale in the value category and that students reported receiving significantly more value than enjoyment from all of the activities in their core classes.

Electives The number of student responses in the electives was far fewer than for the core courses as the core classes were required and had far larger class sizes than the electives. The Personal Family was reported as providing the greatest value to students but the Social Family was rated the highest for enjoyment. As with the core subjects, the Information Processing Family had the lowest rating for enjoyment. The means for all Families except Social were significantly higher for personal value than for enjoyment in the activities. On a five point scale, means for value received never dipped below 4.47 or below 3.84 for enjoyment.

Worth noting is the comparison of core subject means with the electives by Family. The means of the electives were higher than the means of the core subjects. For example, the Social Family mean in the core subjects was 4.05 but higher (4.47) in the electives.

Open-ended Question In order to enrich the information obtained from the activity ratings, students were asked, "How or in what what did the activities influence you?" An inductive approach was used to analyze this data. Rather than classifying responses intro pre-existing categories, the responses were analyzed so that categories emerged from the data and any differences of opinion were resolved through discussion. Four broad categories accounted for most of the responses.