It Matters a Lot Who Teaches Introductory Courses if We Want Students to Continue

Thanks to Gary Stager who sent this link to me. The results mesh with Pat Alexander’s Model of Domain Learning. A true novice to a field is not going to pursue studies because of interest in the field — a novice doesn’t know the field. The novice is going to pursue studies because of social pressures, e.g., it’s a requirement for a degree or a job, it’s expected by family or community, or the teacher is motivating.  As the novice becomes an intermediate, interest in the domain can drive further study.  These studies suggest that persistence is more likely to happen if the teacher is a committed, full-time teacher.

The first professor whom students encounter in a discipline, evidence suggests, plays a big role in whether they continue in it.

On many campuses, teaching introductory courses typically falls to less-experienced instructors. Sometimes the task is assigned to instructors whose very connection to the college is tenuous. A growing body of evidence suggests that this tension could have negative consequences for students.

Two papers presented at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting in New York on Sunday support this idea.

The first finds that community-college students who take a remedial or introductory course with an adjunct instructor are less likely to take the next course in the sequence.

The second finds negative associations between the proportion of a four-year college’s faculty members who are part-time or off the tenure track and outcomes for STEM majors.

Source: It Matters a Lot Who Teaches Introductory Courses. Here’s Why.