Teachers no more have to just perform traditional function of imparting information, as they are the active agent in changing society. Teachers should not only be open to change as they are the vehicle of change, so they play the role of mentor and organizer in the learning process. The demographics of faculty such as the education level, years of experience, gender, and age have influence on his/ her ability to reflect, explore and question their work. A successful teacher needs to have professional competencies as well as professional characteristics. Professional characteristics will include professional values and development whereas professional competencies include knowledge, understanding and skills. The outcome of the whole teaching process depends on the ability to plan the content, method, how to lead class, marking, and evaluation process with the teaching technique together makes the teaching techniques.

Students will have a surface learning approach when the teachers focus only in transmitting knowledge but if the teaching is more student centered, the students will have deeper understanding of the subject and will be willing to adopt a deep approach towards learning. It is observed that those faculties having teacher centric approach usually adopt hard disciplinary measures than those faculties who are more student centric approach.

A teacher’s awareness of his/her own approach of teaching is very important in improving teaching techniques, teaching approaches and self-efficacy beliefs change very slowly. Teachers with high efficacy beliefs use a wide variety of productive and innovative teaching techniques whereas those with low self-efficacy tend to go less for any new pedagogical methods. Teachers who are trained and have good teaching experience will not only be more student centered but will also change their beliefs about themselves as teachers.

There have been few studies conducted to understand the teaching pedagogies among post-graduate faculty members in order to study the association between the pedagogical practices and the educational qualification of the faculty members. Most of the studies have found that the chalk and talk pedagogy continued to dominate teaching and faculty upgradation has become easy due to technological advancements (Uthra, 2014). There have also been studies that have tried to determine the teacher’s attitude towards their profession at different levels and it was found that teachers tend to have a strong positive attitude towards their profession but out of all the levels of teachers considered for the study, it was the secondary school teachers who had the most positive attitude towards the teaching profession. It was also found that the higher secondary school teachers had a more stable and reliable attitude as compared to teachers at other levels (Trivedi, 2012). Another study by Lavrič (2006) focused on the teacher’s reflection on their attitude towards students. The study focused on finding out the association between the faculty members’ educational styles and is influence on their attitude towards students. It was found that there is a strong correlation between the faculty members’ educational style and their attitude towards students. However, it was also indicated that there are other factors which are significant in building good quality relationship between the students and the faculty members in the pedagogical process.

Some of the other studies have tried to assess the teaching competencies of faculty members in an university environment and found that the teaching competencies of faculty members in an university set up or in higher education depends on their attitude towards the teaching profession and this attitude has a major influence on their competencies as a faculty member (Antinio, Silveria & Belando, 2015). Another study conducted by Postareff, Lindblom & Nevgi (2007) on the impact of training on pedagogy in higher education found that there was a positive significant impact of pedagogical training of faculty members’ on their teaching style and teaching approach and also on their self-efficacy. This was found to be particularly true in case of university and other higher education faculty members. Some of the other studies have found that the roles and competencies of faculty members are constantly changing due to changes in the corporate expectation from students (Pusnik and Zorman, 2004). The qualities of faculty members can be classified into professional attributes and competencies which consists of practiced value, practiced development and communication abilities. The communication of faculty members with their students is greatly impacted by their psychological as well as their personality states (Brajsa, 1993). It is understood that high self-efficacy of faculty members can benefit both the faculty and the students, there have been studies that have tried to determine the sources of self-efficacy. It was found by these studies that enactive mastery was the most dominant source of self-efficacy following which were social persuasions and vicarious experiences (Gale, Alemdar, Cappelli & Morris, 2021). There have been many other studies that have found a strong and positive association between the teaching experience of the faculty members and their level of self-efficacy (Kim and Buric, 2020; Wolters and Daugherty, 2007). Another study by Hong (2012) found that the faculty members who have low self-efficacy at the initial stage of their teaching profession are more inclined to leave the teaching profession.

OBJECTIVES

1. To identify the pedagogical factors via factor analysis.
2. To understand & analyze the demographic variables which influence the pedagogy and efficacy of the faculty.
3. To examine how the efficacy of faculty’s teaching approach is related to his/her age, teaching experience & educational level.

HYPOTHESES

H1: There is no significant association between pedagogical factors and faculty demographic variables.

H2: There is no significant association between teaching methods and the demographic variables.

H3: There is no correlation between the pedagogical factors and faculty efficacy

H4: There is no significant association between faculty efficacy and the demographic variables.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The research design is descriptive. A self-developed questionnaire, created based on a literature review, was given to 400 faculty members from various undergraduate and postgraduate colleges and universities in Bangalore. Data was collected through in-person distribution and a Google form. The responses were then compiled and analyzed with SPSS.

Sampling

A sample size of 400 faculty members across UG & PG colleges in Bangalore were surveyed and their responses were collected on the basis of which the paper was developed. Stratified and Judgmental sampling was adopted.

Tools of Data Analysis

A structured questionnaire was created, and the data collected were analyzed with SPSS software.

Variables were identified based on a literature review. To evaluate internal consistency, a reliability test was performed. The alpha coefficient for the 52 items is 0.738, demonstrating good internal consistency.

Table 1: Reliability test

Variables that are similar will be grouped together through factor analysis.

The Communalities table and the Rotated component matrix are as shown below. 

Table 2: Communalities

Table 3: Total Variance explained

Table 4: Factors and Factor loadings

Five different pedagogical factors were identified which could be adopted by every faculty. The 5 factors identified were “Classroom management”, “Emotional Intelligence”, “Lesson presentation”, “Distance with students” & “Student discipline”.

Once the Factor Analysis  was  done,  an  Independent sample t-test & an ANOVA  test  was  run  to  determine  if  there  was  any significant  relation between these 5 pedagogical factors and  the faculty demographics.

CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PEDAGOGICAL FACTORS AND FACULTY DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES.

H1: There is no significant association between pedagogical factors and faculty demographic variables.

When a one-way ANOVA test was run between the five pedagogical factors namely classroom management, emotional intelligence, lesson presentation, distance with students and student discipline and gender of the faculty, it was found that there was no significant difference between pedagogical factors and the gender of the faculty. This indicates that there is no significant difference between male and female faculty members in terms of the pedagogical factors. Hence, it can be said that the pedagogical factors do not vary with gender of the faculty which implies that the pedagogical factors are gender insignificant.

When a one-way ANOVA test was run between the five pedagogical factors and the age of the faculty members, it was found that only two pedagogical factors differed with the age of the faculty i.e. emotional intelligence and distance with students. It was seen that faculty members below the age of 25 years has lower emotional intelligence as compared to faculty members above the age of 25 years. It was also found that faculty with an age group of 21-25 years and faculty with an age of >40 years seem to maintain maximum distance with the students, however faculty with an age group of 26-40 years maintain less distance with students.

When a one-way ANOVA test was run between the five pedagogical factors and the faculty designation it was found that only one pedagogical factor differed with the faculty designation i.e. lesson presentation.   It was found that the lesson presentation seems to be low for lecturers and average for Associate professors, however it seems to be highest for Senior lecturers followed by Assistant professors and Professors.

When a one-way ANOVA test was run between the five pedagogical factors and the faculty experience it was found that only one pedagogical factor differed with the faculty experience i.e. classroom management.   It was found that faculty who have more than 12 years of experience and those who have just joined the institution and served 1-2 years seems to have highest classroom management, however faculty who have served between 3 to 12 years of experience seem to have low classroom management.

CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHING METHODS AND THE DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES.

H2: There is no significant association between teaching methods and the demographic variables.

The teaching methods that were considered in this study were roleplay, group discussions, debates, assignments, mini projects, student presentations, mid-term tests, seminars, guest lectures, subject related workshops, digital aids and mentoring. When a one-way ANOVA test was run between the teaching methods and the experience of the faculty members, it was found that there is a significant association between the faculty experience and only one teaching method i.e. usage of mentoring in the class. It is found that faculty with lesser years of experience tend to adopt mentoring in the classroom as compared to faculty with more number of years of experience.

When a one-way ANOVA test was run between the teaching methods and the course taught by the faculty members, it was found that there is a significant association between the course taught by the faculty and usage of Group discussions as a teaching method. It is found that faculty who teach PG courses tend to organize more GD’s in the class, however faculty who teach UG courses tend to organize the least number of GD’s. It was also found that there is a significant association between the course taught by the faculty and usage of digital displays like LCD’s, videos etc. as a teaching method and usage of digital teaching aids. It is found that faculty who teach PG courses tend to use more of digital displays in the class, however faculty who teach UG courses tend to use digital displays least number of GD’s.

CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PEDAGOGICAL FACTORS AND FACULTY EFFICACY

H3: There is no correlation between the pedagogical factors and faculty efficacy

Table 5: Descriptive Statistics showing Mean

Table 6: Correlation between the pedagogical factors and faculty efficacy

From the above table, it can be found that the only pedagogical factor which influences faculty efficacy is Lesson presentation. It can be seen that there is a positive correlation between the extent of faculty efficacy and their lesson presentation ability. If the faculty are really good at lesson presentation in their classes their total efficacy also increases.

Therefore, for this pedagogical factor H3 is rejected.

CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FACULTY EFFICACY AND THE DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES.

H4: There is no significant association between faculty efficacy and the demographic variables.

Table 7: Association between faculty efficacy and the course taught.

From the above table, it can be seen that there is an association between faculty efficacy and the course taught. It was seen that PG faculty have the highest efficacy followed by UG faculty who seem to be having the lowest efficacy. Therefore H4 is rejected.

In this research paper a factor analysis was done to reduce the pedagogical variables into 5 factors which are classroom management, Emotional intelligence, Lesson presentation, Distance with students & Student discipline. A series of tests were conducted to identify the relationships between the identified pedagogical factors and the demographic variables. Some of the demographical variables which have an association with the five pedagogical factors were age, course taught, faculty teaching training and faculty designation. However experience, gender and marital status do not seem to have an association with any of the pedagogical factors.

It was found that there is a significant association between the faculty experience and usage of mentoring in the class. It was found that faculty with lesser years of experience tend to adopt mentoring in the classroom as compared to faculty with more number of years of experience. It was found that there is a significant association between the course taught by the faculty and usage of Group discussions as a teaching method. It is important for students and faculty to share the responsibility in the pedagogical process.

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