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Parenting in the classroom: University students' evaluations of hypothetical instructors as a function of teaching styles & parenting styles
Abstract
This study examined students' preferences for authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive teaching styles using a hypothetical vignette approach. In addition, the authors assessed how students' preferences for these different teaching styles might be moderated by the parenting style of their parents. 310 university students (19.4% male, M age = 19.7 years) evaluated a candidate for a hypothetical professor position described as having either a permissive, authoritarian, or authoritative teaching style. Participants also completed a questionnaire, on which they described their own parents on the dimensions of acceptance and strictness. Students preferred the authoritative candidate but this preference was not moderated by the parenting style of the students' parents. These findings offer further evidence for the analogy between parenting styles and teaching styles.
This multidisciplinary autoethnography involved three colleagues from different departments in the same online institution. Drawing from parenting behavior, we reflectively explored the research question about how we demonstrated demandingness and responsiveness with our students and how we have changed in this over time. Few studies have looked at teaching styles in this way. Our methodology involved sharing personal journals with each other to develop deeper understandings about the phenomenon. Our assessments were a reflection of our personalities, teaching styles/approaches and based on a personal assessment of parenting style as a depiction of teaching style. Our teaching styles reflected our personality and leadership styles to a large extent but were they what we thought they would be or were they what we wanted them to be? All three of us are very engaged with our students. Our collaborative autoethnographic study has given us pause to reflect on how we teach. It has heightened our awareness about how demanding and responsive we are with our students. Our hope is that this article will help extend the dialogue on perceptions of demandingness and responsiveness in online teaching and that our stories resonate with readers.
The achievement goals and parenting of a sample of 879 grade 8 – 10 Australian students were examined to distinguish differences between low- and high-achieving students. Structural equation modelling was used to test a theoretical model linking parental warmth and strictness/supervision via mastery goals, self-efficacy, and self-handicapping to achievement. Results validated and extended previous findings concerning achievement goal theory, self-efficacy, self-handicapping and parenting style, supporting the role of self-efficacy in mediating the effects of parental style through a mastery goal orientation to achievement. Low achievement was significantly linked to neglectful parenting perceptions, higher self-handicapping and lower mastery goals and self-efficacy. An authoritative parenting style was found to predict higher achievement via enhanced mastery goals and self-efficacy while protecting against self-handicapping.
Parenting styles have consistently been shown to relate to various outcomes such as youth psychopathology, behavior problems, and academic performance. Building on the research in the parenting style literature, along with examining components of self-determination theory, the present study examined the relations among authoritative parenting style, academic performance, self-efficacy, and achievement motivation using a sample of college students (N = 264) . Results indicated that authoritative parenting continues to influence the academic performance of college students, and both intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy predicted academic performance. Additionally, the study tested the interaction between self-efficacy and authoritative parenting, but the interaction was not significant. Implications for future research and applications are discussed.
Examined the relations between parenting styles and child behavior problems in African American preschool children. Participants were 108 African American female caregivers of 3- to 6-year-old children. Correlational analysis showed that parent-reported child behavior problems were associated with maternal education, family income, and parents' endorsement of authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting, and permissive parenting. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that the authoritative parenting style was most predictive of fewer child behavior problems. These results are consistent with previous findings with European American families and provide strong support for the cross-cultural validity of the authoritative parenting style.
In this article, I use Baumrind's (1971) research on parenting styles to help understand the structure and dynamics of the college classroom. I argue that the way professors view their students affects course syllabi and teaching style. The discussion also reflects the development of my own teaching style and philosophy.
Two studies examined whether the ways in which college teachers interact with their students in the classroom can be categorized in the same ways that developmental psychologists have typically categorized parents' interactions with their children. In Study 1 (n = 191) and Study 2 (n = 588), university students described the instructor for a class in which they were currently enrolled using a modified version of the 30-item Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri, 1991). Across both studies, students who expected better grades rated instructors as more authoritative and less authoritarian. Students who described instructors as higher on the authoritarian style reported low levels of interest in the course and rated the instructor unfavorably. The authoritative teaching style was associated with setting high academic standards, greater student interest, and more favorable student evaluations of instructors.
Over 1,000 male and female college students of 16 male and female professors (matched for course division, years of teaching, and tenure status) evaluated their instructors in terms of teaching effectiveness and sex-typed characteristics. Male students gave female professors significantly poorer ratings than they gave male professors on the six teaching evaluation measures; their ratings of female professors were poorer than those of female students on four of the six measures. Female students also evaluated female professors less favorably than male professors on three measures. Student perceptions of a professor's instrumental/active and expressive/nurturant traits, which were positively related to student ratings of teaching, accounted for only a few of these gender-related effects. Student major and student class standing also played a role in the evaluation of professors. The importance of gender variables in teacher evaluation studies is discussed, and implications for future research are noted.
Students (N = 175) at a large public university described their best and worst professors. Male students chose a female professor as “best” less often than expected whereas female students chose a female professor as often as expected. There were no gender differences in choice of “worst” professors. Descriptions of best and worst professors varied by professor and student gender. Overall, the male student-female professor pairing seemed most affected by gender dynamics, with male students most likely to emphasize their best female professors' interpersonal skills, especially being approachable. Male students also were most likely to describe their worst female professor in terms of poor classroom interactions, especially closed-mindedness. Although the most frequently used descriptive qualities of best and worst professors showed similarities to those found in previous research, the hidden gendered patterns raise troubling questions for the use of student nominations and comments to choose superior teachers.
This brief report describes harmonious parents and their children. The six preschool daughters whose parents were harmonious were outstandingly competent but the opposite was true of the two sons. (Author/WY)
Despite broad recognition that teaching excellence requires meeting students' intellectual and social needs, teachers struggle to manage—and learning theory struggles to explain—the interplay between the academic and social dimensions of classroom life. Drawing from research on parenting and child development, the author offers parenting style theory as an explanatory framework. The author begins by describing the two primary dimensions of parenting style (control and nurturance) and the influence of various styles on children's learning and development. The author then discusses the two primary channels whereby style functions, using case studies of three classrooms to illustrate how control and nurturance interact to influence student engagement and learning. Finally, the author argues that because this theory is intuitive, robust, and comprehensive, it is an important vehicle for advancing understanding of teacher influence on student outcomes and school improvement efforts.
This study examines students' motives for use and perceptions of the web site http://www.ratemyprofessors.com, one of the main sites that allow students to post anonymous ratings of college professors in the United States and Canada. The contents of comments posted to the web site are examined for relationships to numerical ratings on the site and motivations expressed by students for participating in the rating process. Qualitative (focus group interviews) and quantitative (content analysis) investigations are presented. Students' motives for accessing Ratemyprofessors.com include information seeking, convenience, and interpersonal utility. As regards teacher ratings, the results indicate that students were primarily concerned with issues such as instructor competence and the classroom experience.