BRAUNSTEIN, SUSAN TABOR

Introduction. Students and faculty agree that there is a great need to improve teaching at the community college. Although students learn in a variety of styles, many teachers rely on just a few teaching methods. This over-reliance on too few methods is a serious problem. Purpose of the Study. The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between an instructor's educational preparation and experience and the choice of instructional methods employed in the classroom. Procedures. The data were collected by direct observation, and the instrument was administered by one observer. Both format and procedure were identical for all observations. The population observed was the entire teacing staff at Florida Institute of Technology, Jensen Beach Campus. Factors considered for correlation with method use included vocational or academic teaching area, part-time or full-time status, exposure to professional education courses, and exposure to methodology workshops. Findings of the Study. The research data indicated that the mean number of methods employed by vocational instructors was higher than the number employed by academic instructors, and part-time instructors had a higher mean number of methods than full-time, although neither gain was statistically significant. Exposure to professional education courses seemed to have no effect on the number of methods employed as both those with and those without such courses employed the same number of methods. The only factor which did yield a statistically significant difference in means was exposure to methodology workshops. The research data indicated that teachers believed training in method and student learning style had little influence on method choice. Factors which were found to be important were course content, preferred teaching style, and class size. Recommendations. It was recommended that further studies should be undertaken to clarify the importance of training in methodology as a determining factor in method choice; to establish what instructors know about student learning styles; to provide a knowledge base on actual behavior of part-time instructors; and to determine the precise nature of those workshops which have proven, by direct independent observation, to have a positive correlation with the number of methods employed.