Abstract :
[en] INTRODUCTION
Team-teaching, also known as collaborative-teaching, co-teaching and pair-lecturing has been practiced for ages (Buckley 2000). It is generally described as a positive pedagogical practice that can both enhance learning among students and the experience of teaching among instructors (Plank 2011, 2014). While it is acknowledged that team-teaching is not simple and requires great coordination among instructors, it is presented in gleaming terms for both instructors and students alike. More recent work highlights an increased necessity for collaborative-teaching due to the growing complexity in higher education combined with dwindling resources (Minett-Smith and Davis 2020), or as a deliberate cost-saving measure (Liebel et al. 2017). Yet, little quantitative evidence can be found in the literature showing the positive efficacy of this methodology, relative to Student Evaluation Teaching (SET) measures (for exception see: Carpenter et al. 2007). Thus, this study aims to answer: 1) how prevalent is team-teaching; 2) what are the most common team compositions (number of instructors, gender, instructor status and seniority); 3) are there any significant differences in SET scores relative to differences in composition; and 4) what can we learn from the open-text feedback to help us understand, or contextualize, any quantitative differences found between solo- versus team-taught courses?
DATA & METHODS
To address our research questions and investigate the contours of team teaching in the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) at the University of Luxembourg, we use SET data (course feedback), as an indirect measure of quality of education (Marsh 2007). We use descriptive statistics and regression analysis to examine the quantitative feedback for a total of 2908 courses collected over eight semesters (Winter semester 2015-Summer semester 2019). We compliment these results with content analysis of open-text comments that help us understand and contextualize the quantitative findings.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
While course feedback data does not directly measure the quality of learning experienced by students (i.e., whether students learn better in team-taught courses vs. solo instructor courses), it does however shed light on the general sentiment experienced and reported by participating students. Preliminary analyses indicate that approximately 30% of courses are team-taught (60% with two-person teams and 40% with teams of 3 and 4+ instructors). Furthermore, we found that, on average, team-taught courses receive significantly lower ratings from students than solo instructor courses. In the remainder of this article, we analyse this basic finding and discuss the implications for team teaching.
