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How Should Teaching Assistants Teach? Differences in Student Perspectives by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Country of Origin

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

June 26, 2024

Conference Session

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 14

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

20

DOI

10.18260/1-2--47538

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/47538

Download Count

128

Paper Authors

biography

Denise Wilson University of Washington Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-2367-8602

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Denise Wilson is a professor and associate chair of diversity, equity, and inclusion in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research interests in engineering education focus on the role of self-efficacy, belonging, and instructional support on engagement and motivation in the classroom while her engineering workplace research focuses on the role of relatedness, autonomy, and competence needs on persistence and fulfillment.

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biography

Neha Kardam University of Washington

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Neha Kardam is a third-year Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is an interdisciplinary researcher with experience in statistics, predictive analytics, mixed methods research, and machine learning techniques in data-driven research.

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Abstract

Teaching Assistants (TAs) are a critical part of many engineering programs, particularly at larger institutions. However, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of how TAs can effectively support students, particularly in comparison to the extensive knowledge available on how faculty can do so. This paper reduces this gap by not only identifying what engineering undergraduates want from TAs but by exploring how these preferences for TA support vary across gender, race/ethnicity, country of origin, and time. Understanding these demographic differences as well as if and how they vary over time can assist TAs in their efforts to equitably serve a diverse student population. Qualitative research methods were applied to over 1,600 student responses and over 1,800 student preferences for TA support across three major time periods: (a) traditional classroom teaching prior to the COVID-19 pandemic; (b) emergency remote learning (ERT) during the peak of the pandemic; and (c) subsequent return to in-person teaching post-pandemic. Thematic analyses of student responses revealed three primary themes in the data: best teaching practices, teacher preparation, and hospitality. Secondary themes within these primary themes were also identified. Within teaching practice, the most common secondary themes included TA-student contact and TA-student feedback. Within teacher preparation, diverse, well-prepared examples and knowledgeable review of course concepts were popular among student respondents. The analysis of both primary and secondary themes indicated that different demographic groups have different preferences for TA support which evolve over time and that such preferences are not uniform across student demographics. This dynamic landscape of what students expect from their TAs suggests that techniques for exploring student expectations at the start of a course can make a valuable addition to TA professional development programs. Understanding this dynamic landscape can also enable TAs to target their teaching efforts for maximum and equitable effectiveness across both underrepresented and majority student populations.

Wilson, D., & Kardam, N. (2024, June), How Should Teaching Assistants Teach? Differences in Student Perspectives by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Country of Origin Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47538

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