Teaching styles

A model of teaching behavior as a role contract between teacher and student is proposed. The first dimension of the model, subject strategy, is based on the behaviors the instructor thinks are important and which he or she attempts to reward. His or her interests determine his or her choice of a didactic, generalist, or researcher subject strategy. The next two dimensions deal with the procedures of the classroom role. The first is the degree of student response. The next is concerned with relative clarity on ambiguity of teachers' expectations. The final dimension is concerned with the degree of warmth shown by teachers to students. Indexes designed to measure student perception of the dimensions in the model were developed and related to various model were developed and related to various criteria in a large sample of 2-year college students. These criteria included faculty ratings, students' sense of progress,satisfaction, and college achievements. The indexes were related to these criteria in expected ways, the generalist, researcher, and warmth indexes typically having positive correlations, and ambiguity having negative correlations.