Stephen Erdle

Personality, Classroom Behavior, and Student Ratings of College Teaching Effectiveness: A Path Analysis.

This study tested the hypothesis that classroom teaching behavior mediates the relation typically found between personality and college teaching effectiveness. Colleagues rated 37 full-time college instructors on 29 personality traits, and trained observers assessed the frequency with which the same instructors exhibited 95 specific classroom teaching behaviors. Instructional effectiveness was measured by global end-of-term student ratings averaged over a 5-year period. Path analyses revealed that approximately 50% of the relation between personality and teaching effectiveness was mediated by classroom behavior. Results are discussed in terms of the validity of student ratings of teaching and in relation to Dunkin and Biddles (1974) model of classroom teaching.

Interfaculty differences in classroom teaching behaviors and their relationship to student instructional ratings

This study tested for differences between instructors in three college faculties in the frequency with which they exhibited various classroom teaching behaviors, and in the correlation of these behaviors with perceived teaching effectiveness. Trained observers assessed the frequency of 95 classroom teaching behaviors shown by 124 teachers in the arts and humanities, the social science, and the natural science faculties. Teaching effectiveness was measured by formal end-of-term student ratings averaged over a three-year period. Behaviors reflecting “interpersonal orientation” occurred more frequently in arts and social science teachers than in natural science teachers, whereas behaviors reflecting “task orientation” occurred more frequently in natural and social science teachers than in arts teachers. However, the pattern of correlations between teaching behaviors and overall effectiveness ratings was quite similar in all three faculties. Results are discussed in terms of understanding, evaluating, and improving college teaching.

Sex differences in personality correlates of helping behavior

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine sex differences in personality correlates of different types of helping behavior. The Self-Report Altruism Scale, the Jackson Personality Inventory and the Emotional Empathy Scale were completed by 101 (62 women, 39 men) undergraduate university students. Women were found to score higher than men on low-risk, low-physical-strength helping behaviors, and lower than men on high-risk, high-physical-strength helping behaviors. Sex differences were also found in personality correlates of helping behaviors. For example, Conventionality was found to correlate positively with high-risk, high-physical-strength helping behavior for men, but negatively for women. Implications for the assessment and understanding of helping behavior are discussed.

Combining trait consistency and learning specificity approaches to personality, with illustrative data on faculty teaching performance

Abstract Data on personality and teaching performance in university professors are brought to bear on the debate about the consistency of social behaviour. We argue: (a) that traits can best be inferred by sampling from a domain of specific acts and then aggregating across them to gain a representative composite; and (b) that the modification of behaviour largely represents the alteration of specific acts. In particular, we report data showing: (a) that extraversion correlates 0.51 with teaching effectiveness; (b) that this relationship is mediated by specific classroom behaviours; (c) that extraversion correlates 0.33 (on average) with single teaching behaviours, as compared to 0.50 with an aggregate of behaviours; and (d) that training on specific classroom behaviours improves teaching effectiveness. We conclude that both consistency and specificity exist in behaviour and that each provides a useful focus for analysis. Schematic models representing different levels of explanation are provided.

Aggregating Scores: To Standardize or Not to Standardize?

This paper demonstrates that although aggregated standard scores can correlate substantially with aggregated raw scores, their correlations with an external criterion can differ markedly. This will occur when the variances of the components differ and these differences are related to the correlations of the components with the criterion.

Aggregating Standard Scores or Raw Scores: Whither the Controversy?.

This article evaluated criticisms by Stevens and Aleamoni (1986) of an article by Gardner and Erdle (1984) on aggregation using either raw or standard scores. It was demonstrated that their criticisms were unfounded.