The Characteristics Of Effective Instructor

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Instruction is an art and plays a pivotal role in the translation of knowledge. In other words it is a complex and unique activity that depends upon the mastery of instructor in content, classroom control, techniques of organization, and command of teaching skills. It may be classified into effective and ineffective instruction. Effective instruction bases on the qualities and abilities of nursing instructor. The instructors are also named according to these groups, as effective and ineffective instructors. Both types of instructors consists some group of characteristics. As modeling, attitude, and humanistic orientation are core characteristics of an effective instructor and is interested in a positive relationship with students.

Effective instructors provide effective instruction which helps in providing quality teaching and allow effective understanding of the nursing students. The quality of instruction can modify the comprehension and learning process of the students and can either facilitate or hinder the students’ learning. The quality of teaching and learning process shapes the perception of students about their instructors’ effectiveness. Thus-why, the perception of students is the best indicator for exploring, determining and measuring of characteristics of effective instructors. This study examine nursing students' perceptions and frequencies of students’ perception about the characteristics of effective nursing instructor, follows the research question that, what are the students’ perceptions of the characteristics of an effective nursing instructor?

Descriptive Cross-sectional study design will be used. Data will be collected from hundred (n=100) participants from two nursing schools by non-probability convenient sampling technique. The resultant findings of this study will show the perception of the students about the possible existing characteristics of the nursing instructors. This will help to understand the possible perception of students prevailing in the education system that may hinder or enhances the students learning and professional growth and development.

Students’ Perception about the Characteristics of Effective Instructor

Introduction

Teaching or instruction is an art and it should be judged for the passion and beauty of the performance and the meaningfulness of the lecture conveyed. Teaching is a complex and demanding activity that involves mastery of content, classroom control, techniques of organization, and command of teaching skills. Instruction consists not only of instruction, but also of the systematic promotion of learning (Fitzpatrick, 2004). Instruction is the backbone of any training session and plays a pivotal role in the learning process of the students.

Instruction may be categorized as effective and ineffective. According to Mulholland (2010) effective instructions are characterized by increased levels of organization and clarity, eagerness and motivation, instructor knowledge, instructional skills, supervisory capabilities, instructor competence, and professional characteristics. Effective instruction bases on the qualities and abilities of nursing instructor. Modeling, attitude, and humanistic orientation are core characteristics of an effective instructor and interest in a positive relationship with students. Effective instructors provide effective instruction which helps in providing quality teaching and allow effective understanding of the nursing students. The quality of instruction can modify the comprehension and learning process of the students and can either facilitate or hinder the students’ learning.

Good and qualified teachers are necessary for efficient functioning of educational systems and for enhancing the quality of learning. The effective instructor produces an educative and conducive learning environment for the students. According to Homa & Karim (2009) this environment leads to respect for personality, participation in decision making, freedom of expression and availability of information, and mutuality of responsibility in defining goals, planning and conducting activities, and evaluating. As a result trust develops in students for their teachers and the teaching learning process occurred qualitatively, effectively and efficiently. The quality of teaching and learning process shapes the perception of students about their instructors’ effectiveness. Thus-why, the perception of students is the best indicator for exploring and measuring of characteristics of effective instructors. Chow (2001) explored that effective instructor can improve students' transfer of knowledge and skills, and enhance learning of the students.

In the beginning of the course most of the nursing students are nervous during instruction. They are troubled and could not perform better in their course work. An effective instructor develops a relationship with the student that is reassuring, developing and confidence-building. He/she commits good work and creates an atmosphere in which the student is allowed to make mistakes, learns from them and develops idea. The education can be transfer from teacher to students by good learning, to develop qualified, trained, skillful and up to date work force to meet the challenges of the society. Good learning need effective teacher but in the majority of students explore that their instructor are untrained and their way of teaching does not match learning need. This problem leads to misconception and hinder their learning. Moreover, the studies cited that there is a shortage of effective instructors which badly effect learning of the students (Lee, Cholowski and Williams, 2002).

Barham (1965) was one of the first researcher in nursing who initiated an interest in effective teaching. Barham’s general objective was to identify behavior which differentiated between effective and ineffective nursing instructors in the junior community colleges of California. Lee et al. (2002) explored the effective characteristics of clinical teacher as perceived important by undergraduate nursing students. Barham concluded that effective teaching was demonstrated by a teacher who did not let anxiety influence a situation, who recognized his or her own personal limitations, demonstrated understanding of students by being available to them in all situations, who provided understandable explanations and who had the ability to stimulate the desire to learn in nursing students (Barham, 1965).

Objectives of the study

The objectives of our study is to:

The purpose of our study is to examine nursing students' perceptions of the characteristics of effective nursing instructor

Research Question

What are the students’ perceptions about the characteristics of an effective nursing instructor?

Definitions of key Terms

Learning: It is the process of acquisition of knowledge, skill, or attitude by study, experience or teaching.

Motivation: Motivation refers to the forces either within or external to a person that arouse enthusiasm and persistence to pursue a certain course of action.

Perception: It is a process of recognition and interpretation of stimuli based chiefly on memory.

Professional growth: It is the enhancement in the profession of nursing based on the innovation of education, movement towards independency, and its expansion to other professional members

Literature Review

The characteristics of effective instructor remain poorly defined in literature, however the students pointed out the characteristics of an effective instructor in different way according to their perception. Zimmerman and Waltman (1986) found, that the characteristics of effective teaching could not be explained by only one or two teaching behaviors, and that many characteristics–both specific and categorical–promoted effective teaching. Through various studies, the many characteristics have essentially been grouped and have most often included the categories of: teaching Ability, professional competence, evaluation of students, interpersonal relationships, and personal traits/personality. Claudette (2007) find out the professional competence of a teacher as the most important characteristic as role modeling behavior of teacher and strongly recommended role modeling of teachers. On the other hand students felt that the ineffective is the worst teacher and the worst teachers remain unapproachable and lack empathy, do not communicate expectations clearly, and embarrass students when they make mistakes. The worst teachers are poor role models, and are closed-minded and judgmental. The worst teachers fail to create an atmosphere of mutual respect, and not to provide support and encouragement to students.

Berg and Lindseth (2004) pointed out that the baccalaureate nursing students in the United States perceived that the teaching methods, personality, and presentation of course materials were the three primary characteristics of an effective instructor. The work of Kelly (2007) in Australia on perception of nursing students about the characteristics of effective teacher documented that the teacher knowledge is critical in shaping the perception of their effectiveness for their students. Viverais-Dresler (2001) noted that professional competence, good interpersonal relationships, and teaching ability of instructors are key factors. Moreover, the effective instructor is approachable, fair, open, honest, and creates mutual respect. Students perceived the best teachers as demonstrating enthusiasm, promoting student independence, and correcting students without embarrassment.

The relationship the instructor develops with the student is critical for effective instruction. The effective instructor develop, with the student's, regularly scheduled conferences to provide feedback on the student's progress, discuss student objectives and consider how they are being met. The instructors also praise the student's good work and point out problems. The role of instructors is to facilitate students learning, the role of instructor in organizing the content and sequence of learning based on students' needs, and the instructor should measure teaching effectiveness by assessing changes in students' attitudes and behaviors.

Three undergraduate nursing programs in Melbourne, Australia were surveyed by Kanitsake and Sellick (1989) and identified the behaviors that student nurses saw as most important to the role of the teacher. The students consider that all behaviors are important, included: the role of the teacher, demonstrating nursing, applying theory to practice, preparing students for function and evaluating student performance. Students as a whole regarded the teaching role as more important than guidance, being a role model, applying theory to practice or evaluation of student performance. According to Cook (2005), in the majority of cases in the absence of these effective characteristics in the instructor the behaviors of the instructor modify in a way which negatively pose them in front of students. This situation creates stress and anxiety in nursing students during interaction with instructors and obstruct learning of the students. Consequently the students perceive their instructors ineffective.

Conclusion

Effective instructors consists certain characteristics which necessary for the teaching learning process to transfer knowledge from one generation to other generation effectively. These characteristics can modify the relationship among students and instructors, develop environment for the teaching learning, and effect learning of the students. Consequently portray the perception of the students. The perception of the students is the best indicator to decide the effectiveness of the instructor. The study of perception of students will help in the development of suitable environment for teaching learning of students.

Material & Methods:

StudiesStudy Design:

Interventional

Non-interventional or observational

Analytical

Descriptive

Observational

Experimental

Exploratory

Cross sectional

Case Report

Or Case series

Case control

Cross sectional

Cohort

Descriptive Cross-sectional study design will be used

Setting

The study will be conducted at College of Nursing, Ziauddin University Karachi Pakistan.

Duration

The duration of this study will be 9 months from March to November 2013

Sample Size

100 students of Diploma in General Nursing will be included in the study from the target population i.e.

School of Nursing Ziauddin University

School of Nursing National Institute of Child Health

Sampling Technique:

Non-probability Convenient sampling technique will be used

Sample Selection

Inclusion criteria:

Students from all the Four from the target population

Exclusion criteria:

Students who already have completed specialized course like Midwifery Course

Methodology: (Data Collection)

The student nurses will be selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Those who have been selected for the study will be given a written informed consent form (ANNEXE-I), which will be necessary to obtain prior to participation in the study.

A specially designed self-administered structured questionnaire (ANNEXE-II) will be used as a tool for the data collections. This structured questionnaire will be distributed among the selected participants and will be guided to for proper understanding and responding to the question asked.

After obtaining responses from the participants, the complete questionnaire will be returned to the data collector. The provided responses will not be allowed to be manipulated by the researcher or any other person and for each section it will be considered as final. The data will then be entered into computed software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 18 for storage and analysis.

Data Analysis

A spread sheet will be developed in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). For this purpose SPSS version 18 will be used to record, store, and assess the collected data. Different study variables will be given special codes and the data will be prepared for statistical analysis.

The results from different sections will be summarized by using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics will be used to compute frequencies, percentages and graphs, for qualitative variables like gender, martial status, etc and means + SD will be calculated for quantitative variables like age etc

Variables:

Independent variable will be "characteristic of instructors"

Dependent variables will be:

Students’ perception

The following Demographic variable will also be collected from student nurses.

Age

Sex

Year of training

Study setting of the students

Outcome & Utilization

The resultant findings of this study will show the perception of the students about the possible existing characteristics of the nursing instructors. So, it is anticipated that the finding of this study will help the nurse educators in following ways to:

Understand the possible perception of students prevailing in the education system that may hinder or enhances the students learning and professional growth and development.

It will help in planning teaching strategies and assessment methodologies for the students

Limitation of the proposed study

The student nurses who quit their studies and are no more present in these nursing colleges will be a big challenge to identify and located in this limited time and budget.

The sampling population of this study is restricted to only three (02) Schools of Nursing in Karachi city and the inferences made on such small sample can not be generalized equally to other learners in the country.

To validate the finding in more detail a large sample size will be needed.

Cost constraints will be a big limitation

Ethical considerations

The study will be conducted according to declearation of the World Medical Association at Helsinki in 2008.

Written informed concent will be taken from evey human subject.

Procedure, if any, shall be carried out painlessly and with out any undue stress

The data will only be used for the study purpose.

Confidentiality shall be stricktly maintained.

Code:______

ANNEX-ICONSENT FORM

Ziauddin University College of Nursing, Karachi

I ___________________________, son/daughter of _______________________, hereby, fully agree to contribute in the above mentioned study. My ID No. is_______________. I understand that the study is designed to add knowledge to Nursing profession. I have been informed about the nature of the participation and possible risks/discomfort involved. I had the opportunity to ask any question about the study and I agree to give my response as requested by the researcher (Irshad Akhter). I have no objection in case the data obtained from my investigation is published in research publication while maintaining confidentiality.

_______________________ _______________ _______________________

Mr. Sami Khokhar Irshad Akhter (The Supervisor) (The Researcher) Signature of the Participants

Code:______

ANNEX-IISTUDY PROFORMA

Students’ Perceptions about the Characteristics of Effective Nursing Instructors

Name: _______________________ Age in Years: _________Gender: Male Female

Name of Institute: ________________________Government Private Other:______

Ethnicity of the participants: Panjabi Pathan Sindhi Balouchi

Year of the study: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th

Please read the following statements carefully and circle the one that is ‘right’ for you.

If you believe the following as a characteristics of the effective nursing instructor then circle one, if you perceive then that these are not the characteristics of an effective nursing instructor then circle No.

Keys: 1= Yes 2= No

S.No

Descriptions of Items

1

2

Respectful: Respect the student as an individual

1

2

Knowledgeable: equipped with knowledge, skills and attitude

1

2

Approachable: open to provide easy and on the spot access to the students

1

2

Engaging: motivate and hold students toward objectives

1

2

Communicative:

1

2

Organized

1

2

Responsive

1

2

Professional

1

2

Humorous

1

2

Fair objective

1

2

Fair Evaluation

1

2

Student centre

Expert

Ethical

Director

Responsible

Empowering

Thank you for participation in the study