Tineke Kingma

Teaching behavior in the context of honors education in higher education

What teachers do as teachers, their teaching behavior, plays an important role in supporting student learning. When this doctoral research started, honors students formed a new target group for higher education. Teaching honors students presented a novel challenge for higher education teachers, requiring further development of their teaching behaviors to effectively address the needs of this student population. This dissertation is concerned with honors teachers and how they support students in their motivation to learn. The main focus is on need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behaviors in higher education programs for honors students.

Chapter 1 introduces the research on teaching behavior from a self-determination perspective. Self-determination theory (SDT) is a broad macro-theory on human motivation and behavior that has been well researched in psychology and education, especially in primary and secondary education. We used this theory to identify dimensions of teaching behavior that are critical in supporting students’ intrinsic motivation in honors education. Teaching behaviors that support the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness play a central role in this dissertation.

As described in Chapter 1, the aim of this dissertation is to provide a broader understanding of the context of honors education and the behaviors teachers demonstrate to support honors students’ intrinsic motivation to learn. This dissertation encompasses four studies carried out in the Netherlands between 2013 and 2020. Prior to studying honors teaching behaviors, two preliminary studies (Chapters 2 and 3) examined the context of honors education and the factors influencing teaching behaviors in this setting, as expressed in the first research question of this dissertation: What is the potential impact of contextual factors on the teaching behavior of honors teachers? (Chapters 2 and 3). The central research question of this dissertation is the second one: What need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors do university teachers report and demonstrate in honors education? (Chapters 4 and 5).

Chapter 2 reports on a qualitative study that explored contextual factors in the implementation of extracurricular excellence programs at four different Universities of Applied Sciences (UASs). Program managers were interviewed as key figures. The goal was to gain a better understanding of the context in which the teachers were working with the honors students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 program managers responsible for leading the implementation and monitoring of excellence programs within their own institutions in the externally funded Sirius program. Program managers were asked about three contextual factors related to this implementation: institutional policy, development of the curriculum by teams of teachers, and the added value of excellence programs.

The findings showed that program managers created a context for the implementation of excellence programs, even though they had little influence on the institutional policies for this innovation. Important and sometimes restrictive aspects of these institutional policies concerned quality assurance processes, a central budget for teaching, organizational procedures, and central excellence policies. The curricula for excellence programs were developed at the departmental level, which allowed for team ownership. Teams of teachers were given the responsibility and space to develop and implement extracurricular excellence programs in their department and university. Program managers indicated that the implementation of excellence programs contributed to teacher development and motivation by providing a space for sharing experiences and experimenting with new pedagogical approaches. This fostered a shared meaning of the innovation and was seen as an important added value of implementing excellence programs.

Chapter 3 describes a quantitative study that examined the use of autonomy-supportive teaching behaviors in extracurricular excellence programs in relation to certain factors in the social work environment of teachers. The study tested the following hypothesis: There is a positive relationship between the use of autonomy-supportive teaching behaviors in extracurricular excellence programs and experiencing low pressure in the work environment, one’s own intrinsic motivation, and having a growth mindset. Forty-seven teachers from six UASs completed an online questionnaire based on validated Likert-scale questionnaires. Some teachers worked at a UAS that received a grant from the Sirius Program and some worked at a UAS that did not receive a grant.

Following Reeve (2009), the term “autonomy-supportive teaching behavior” is used in this chapter. This is a synonym for “need-supportive teaching behavior”, used in Chapters 4 and 5. The terms “honors” and “excellence programs” are used interchangeably in the Dutch literature. At the beginning of the Sirius Program they were called excellence programs, and during the Sirius Program, universities in the Netherlands more often referred to them as honors programs.

The results showed that the majority of teachers reported using autonomy-supportive teaching behaviors in their extracurricular excellence programs. Our hypothesis was partially confirmed. A positive relationship was found between experiencing low pressure and autonomy-supportive behaviors. However, we did not find the expected positive relationships between teachers’ intrinsic motivation and growth mindset, on the one hand, and autonomy-supportive teaching behavior, on the other.

Chapter 4 describes a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers from four Dutch universities, who taught both extracurricular honors classes and regular bachelor’s classes. Seven teachers worked at a research university and five at a UAS. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using the STAR method. This method consists of four steps. Teachers were asked to describe an actual teaching situation (S) in which the result (R) was that they successfully motivated their students. Other questions were: What was your task (T) and role in this specific situation? What specific activities (A) did you use to motivate the students? First, all questions were asked about a teaching situation in honors education, and then about a teaching situation in regular education.

Findings showed that all three basic needs were supported in both educational settings. Teachers reported both similar and specific behaviors in the two different contexts to support student development, growth, and motivation. They reported six behaviors in both contexts, four behaviors exclusively in honors classrooms, and one behavior specifically in regular classrooms. In both settings, teachers similarly provided three forms of structure (organizing meetings, asking questions, and being clear about expectations), one form of autonomy support (giving responsibility), and two forms of teacher involvement (building relationships, and providing safety and trust). Despite the similarities in the types of behaviors observed, there were notable differences in how these behaviors were enacted. The most notable difference was in how teachers gave responsibility to their students. Teachers reported that in the honors classroom they wanted to challenge students to take responsibility for their own learning, whereas in the regular classroom students were given responsibility for making content-related decisions. When looking at differences in teaching behaviors, the findings showed that in honors education, there was more variation in teaching behavior in terms of supporting the need for autonomy and the need for competence. Teachers in the honors setting reported supporting students’ autonomy through an open-ended approach to assignments and by supporting students in finding their own potential. They provided structure by tailored guidance to what students needed at a particular time and by being easily accessible. In the regular classroom, teachers reported using a specific teaching behavior that focused on providing structure, which was a step-by-step approach.

Chapter 5 describes a qualitative video observation study. First, an observation tool was developed to analyze video recordings of 12 lessons from four different honors teachers at one UAS. This tool helped to identify the types of behaviors that make up the different dimensions of need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in their honors classrooms. We built on existing SDT observation schedules from secondary education and extended them with descriptions of teaching behaviors from experimental, self-report, and laboratory studies from different educational contexts (mostly from secondary education). Teachers who use need-supportive teaching behaviors start out from the student’s perspective and engage in autonomy support (supporting the need for autonomy), provide structure (supporting the need for competence), and show teacher involvement (supporting the need for relatedness). Teachers who mainly show need-thwarting teaching behaviors, have little regard for the perspective of the student and are controlling and pressuring (thwarting the need for autonomy). They create chaos through lack of information and guidance (thwarting the need for competence), and have cold interactions with their students (thwarting the need for relatedness). Teachers use and combine various need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behaviors simultaneously in their teaching. To avoid fragmentation, we chose instructional patterns as the meaningful unit of analysis in this study. This made it possible to better understand the function of the teaching behaviors in the different instructional patterns.

The main findings of this study were nine types of behaviors that had not previously been identified in observational studies. In addition, teachers were found to exhibit a broad repertoire of structure-supportive behaviors, and a narrower repertoire for autonomy support and teacher involvement. The latter two were used equally often. Structure-providing behavior was the most common need-supportive behavior across all instructional patterns. Teaching behaviors that thwarted needs occurred to a limited extent and only in combination with one or more need-supportive behaviors. Autonomy-supportive behaviors occurred most frequently in student-centered instructional patterns, whereas teacher involvement was used most frequently in teacher–student interactive patterns (dialogue with the class and student presentations) and in the student-centered group coaching pattern.

Chapter 6 summarizes and discusses the findings of the studies in this dissertation. By using the lens of self-determination theory, this dissertation contributes to understanding the dimensions of need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behaviors identified in honors education. The observation tool that is developed forms a practical operationalization of SDT with regard to teaching in honors education, which was previously not available. The main findings indicate that teachers support students’ needs in both contexts (regular and honors), although the amount and type of need support varies between these contexts. Teaching behavior in honors education seems to focus more on intrinsic motivation, while in regular education the focus is more on extrinsic motivation. This may lead to a tension between honors and regular bachelor’s education, as the selected talented and motivated students seem to receive more support for their learning needs than regular students. Despite inspiring examples of honors education and of exchanges between honors teacher teams, the honors pedagogical repertoire does not appear to have a substantial influence on regular education pedagogy. This holds true even when the same teachers teach in both educational settings. This dissertation argues that there must be factors other than individual teacher characteristics at work that influence teaching behavior. Plausible factors, supported in part by this dissertation, include differences between extracurricular and intracurricular education, the role of high expectations, the small-scale setting of honors education, and the close-knit honors community. Teachers used a broad repertoire of structure-supportive behaviors, while their repertoire for autonomy support and teacher involvement was narrower. Looking at studies based on the student perspective, one might assume that equal attention should be given to all three forms of support. This dissertation shows that the different dimensions of behaviors were complementary to each other.

The observation tool that was developed provides teachers and teams of teachers with concrete pedagogical language to foster the use of the honors teaching behaviors. A key recommendation of this dissertation is to use the terminology in the observation tool as a starting point for sharing experiences with colleagues about supporting their students’ motivation and learning. Another recommendation is to incorporate the tool into actual classroom practice, for example, as a reference point in video supervision and video peer coaching. The deliberate use of instructional patterns in lesson planning allows teachers to use their teaching behaviors more consciously. Furthermore, the findings reveal that teacher support for student needs may in part depend on support for teacher autonomy across multiple levels, from individual classrooms to teacher teams within departments, to school-wide policies. This requires managers and policymakers to create an autonomy-supportive working environment for teachers. Autonomy support for teachers calls for a congruent institutional vision on autonomy in student learning and autonomy in the context of teachers’ work.