Characteristics of Effective Teaching: Two-Year Technical College Students' Perspective

Abstract

Teaching significantly influences learning. The elements of effective teaching have been thoroughly studied at the secondary and tertiary levels. Still, the literature on the components of effective teaching in two-year technical colleges is limited. Thus, the study aimed to characterize effective teaching from two-year technical college students’ perspective. The study was conducted in 10 two-year technical colleges in Israel. Six hundred and seventy-four electronics students participated in the research. Three hundred and twenty-nine of the participants were younger students, who had continued to post-secondary studies directly from high school, and the remaining 345 participants were older students, who had resumed their studies after taking a break. All participants filled out an anonymous five-level Likert-like scale and answered open-ended questions. The findings indicate that both groups of students place high importance (i.e., a mean score higher than 4.00) on content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and knowledge of learners. However, a significant difference was revealed, in favor of the younger students, in the importance attributed to knowledge of learners. This gap highlights the importance that these students attach to the relationship with the teaching staff.