Patterns of university teachers’ approaches to teaching, professional development and perceived departmental cultures

Figures & data

Table 1. The main characteristics of the Finnish and Hungarian sub-samples.

Academics’ distribution (%) within the Finnish and Hungarian sub-samples		FIN %	HUN %
Disciplinary fields	Hard sciences*	41.1	56.7
	Soft sciences*	58.9	43.3
	Overall	100	100
Teaching experience	2 or less than 2 years	22.7	5.9
	3–9 yrs	34.8	27.3
	10 or more years	42.4	66.7
	Overall	100	100
Gender	Women	49.9	47.9
	Men	50.1	52.1
	Overall	100	100
Job titles	Professor	14.8	61.4
	Researcher	33.9	2.3
	Doctoral student	19.3	1.7
	Teaching staff	31.9	26.1
	Overall	100	100
Academic degree	Staff without PhD	64.2	64.8
	Staff with PhD or higher scientific degree**	35.8	35.2
	Overall	100	100

*In the case of the ‘sport and health sciences’ and other multidisciplinary units, the hard versus soft distinction cannot be defined clearly and was thus excluded from the comparison of teachers from the fields of hard and soft sciences.

**Hungarian academics, after the acquisition of the PhD, can defend a habilitation; and after that they can apply to become a Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Table 2. Teachers’ approaches to teaching according to disciplines and the length of teaching experience.

	Practice-focused approach		Development of thinking skills approach		Knowledge-focused approach		Learning outcomes and requirements focused approach
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
University teachers from soft disciplines	3.70	.72	4.11	.66	3.75	.78	4.23	.87
University teachers from hard disciplines	3.39	.81	3.75	.78	3.90	.75	3.94	1.14
Significance	p < .001		p < .001		p = .004		p < .001
University teachers with less than 2 years of teaching experiences	3.35	.86	3.76	.84	3.63	.82	3.95	1.06
University teachers with 3–9 years of teaching experiences	3.50	.79	3.92	.71	3.74	.75	4.07	1.00
University teachers with 10 or more years of teaching experiences	3.72	.74	4.04	.71	3.92	.74	4.16	.99
Significance	p < .001		p < .001		p < .001		No

Table 3. Differences in PD activities by the length of university teachers’ teaching experience.

PD activities	Years of teaching experiences in HE	N	M	SD	F	P
Research-focused and formal PD activities	Less than 2 years	124	.59	.55	8.85	.001
	3–9 years	346	.76	.56
	10 years or more	569	.83	.60
	Total	1039	.78	.58
Experimenting in teaching for PD	Less than 2 years	124	1.28	.52	7.07	.001
	3–9 years	346	1.43	.44
	10 years or more	569	1.45	.46
	Total	1039	1.42	.47
Sharing teaching practices with colleagues for PD	Less than 2 years	124	1.40	.46	4.92	.007
	3–9 years	346	1.30	.43
	10 years or more	569	1.26	.44
	Total	1039	1.29	.44

Note: The PD activities were categorised from 0 to 2.

Table 4. Teaching approaches (1–5 Likert-type scale), types of PD activities (0–2 categories of frequency), and the perceived professional culture of the department (1–5 Likert-type scale) in the four groups of university teachers (Ward’s method).

		Scales (Cronbach’s alpha and the number of items)	Clusters				Total
			Experimenters with diverse teaching approaches	Experimenters perceiving their department’s culture as most supportive and collaborative	Individualistic knowledge-focused teachers	Student-thinking oriented but professionally unintegrated
N (%)	All university teachers		464 (44.6%)	276 (26.5%)	252 (24.2%)	48 (4.6%)	1040 (100%)
	Finnish University teachers		227 (37.5%)	206 (34.0%)	131 (21.7%)	41 (6.8%)	605 (100%)
	Hungarian University teachers		237 (54.5%)	70 (16.1%)	121 (27.8%)	7 (1.6%)	435 (100%)
Teaching approaches	Practice-focused	0.85 8 items	4.02* (.57)	3.35 (.64)	2.84 (.70)	3.42 (.84)	3.53 (.80)
	Development of thinking skills	0.82 6 items	4.39* (.48)	3.84 (.62)	3.31 (.70)	4.12 (.66)	3.97 (.73)
	Knowledge-focused	0.75 4 items	4.22* (.58)	3.48 (.72)	3.47 (.73)	3.79 (.86)	3.82 (.76)
	Learning outcomes and requirements focused	0.75 4 items	4.63* (.54)	4.01 (.90)	3.26 (1.14)	4.10 (.91)	4.11 (1.00)
PD activities	Research-focused and formal	0.86 5 items	1.01* (.57)	.79 (.54)	.38 (.39)	.56 (.39)	.78 (.58)
	Experimenting in teaching as PD activity	0.61 3 items	1.58 (.37)	1.60* (.33)	.96 (.43)	1.33 (.49)	1.42 (.47)
	Sharing practices with colleagues	0.60 3 items	1.39* (.43)	1.34 (.34)	1.06 (.48)	1.35 (.49)	1.29 (.44)
Perceived professional culture of department	The culture of departmental support of teaching	0.89 6 items	3.67 (1.11)	3.76* (.90)	3.05 (1.11)	1.47 (1.45)	3.44 (1.19)
	Training- and project-centered professional culture	0.75 3 items	3.30 (1.27)	3.80* (.97)	2.54 (1.05)	.90 (1.01)	3.14 (1.31)
	The culture of voluntary collegial collaboration	0.77 3 itemes	3.63 (.98)	3.87* (.79)	3.02 (.94)	.70 (.91)	3.41 (1.14)
	Individualistic and cliqued culture	0.75 3 items	2.99 (.97)	2.50 (.93)	3.19* (1.01)	1.28 (1.58)	2.83 (1.09)

Note: The highest score within each clustered group is in italics. The highest score for each variable is marked with an asterisk*. The number of items and reliability of the scales are presented in the authors’ previous study (Tynjälä, Kálmán, and Skaniakos 2019).

Tynjälä, P., O. Kálmán, and T. Skaniakos. 2019. University Teachers’ Teaching Approaches, Professional Development, and Perception of Teaching Cultures: A Comparative Study of Finland and Hungary (Manuscript submitted to publication).

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