The Effect of Practice on the Acquisition of Teaching Skills: A Microteaching Study

Abstract

This study dealt with the effect of practice on the acquisition of teaching skills within a microteaching setting. Many writers (McDonald, 1973; Brown, 1975) saw such teaching skills as analogous to motor skills and consequently practice of the skills was seen as a necessary factor in their acquisition. However, other research by Wagner (1973), Freyberg, Katterns and Rogers (1974), Batten (1978) and Chessman, Pugh and Bielat (1979a) suggested that practice may not be necessary for the acquisition of teaching skills. Further, developments in theorising about microteaching, by such writers as. Fuller and Manning (1973), Bierschenk (1974) and MacLeod and McIntyre (1977), seemed to suggest that teaching skills might best be conceptualised as cognitive rather than behavioural. Evidence as to the effectiveness or effects of practice remains inconclusive and so the initial aim of this study was to investigate two comparisons. First, to compare the effects of practice with the effects of cognitive discrimination training.Second, to compare the effects of a microteaching session with a subsequent microteaching session. Both comparisons were made using two teaching skills. The skills were Variation and Higher Order Questioning and the effects of the treatments were assessed on two criteria, students' performance scores and their attitudes. Further aspects of the study included an examination of two themes which allowed for an elaboration and a deeper understanding of the results of the comparisons of the experimental treatments. First, students' concept acquisition test scores were used as a criterion to assess the effect of cognitive discrimination training. Of particular interest was whether concept acquisition test scores differentiated between students trained in discrimination training and those who were not trained. Second, the possibility of a positive relationship between concept acquisition test scores and performance scores was considered. Two studies (Gliessman, Pugh and Bielat, 1979a,b) that have previously considered this achieved mixed results. Yet it seems plausible that, given an assumption of a cognitive conceptualisation of the process of skill acquisition, such a positive relationship may exist.