Called to Teach. Группа авторов
a common part of psychological research for a long time.28 They are occasionally used to study teaching expertise in P-12 environments29 but are rarely used to study master teachers within university settings. This is unfortunate because case study methods are particularly useful for studying experts.30 “[S]ometimes we simply have to keep our eyes open and look carefully at individual cases—not in the hope of proving anything, but rather in the hope of learning something!”31
Method
The Case: Roger E. Kirk
Since by its nature excellent teaching is rare, selecting cases randomly from the universe of professors does not guarantee being able to observe a master teacher. Instead, case studies of excellent teachers require purposefully selecting extremes—individuals that are much different from what is typical. Extreme cases are particularly useful for exploratory studies that are “open-ended” in the investigation of a phenomenon.32
The case I selected was Roger E. Kirk. Kirk is an expert in the field of quantitative methods. In terms of scholarship, he has published over one hundred works in psychology and statistics, including five books. One of his books has received the rare honor of being designated a citation classic.33
Kirk’s expertise not only includes the field of quantitative methods but also includes pedagogy. This is more difficult to demonstrate than expertise in a substantive area. Perhaps the best way to make the case of his pedagogical expertise is to note the numerous awards he has received. In 1992 he was named the Outstanding Tenured Teacher in the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University. In the following year, Baylor gave him the title Master Teacher—the university’s highest teaching award. In 2005, Division 5 of the American Psychological Association (APA) gave him the Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished Contributions to Teaching and Mentoring. He won the 2012–2013 Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year at Baylor for his “superlative teaching and outstanding research contributions.” More recently, in 2015, he won the APA’s Charles L. Brewer Award for Distinguished Teaching of Psychology. This award “celebrates Roger E. Kirk’s dedication to and accomplishments in the teaching of psychology . . . His passion for teaching is legendary, his commitment to his discipline absolute, and his work ethic unmatched.”34
The Design: Case Study
The aim of this particular study was to explore how a master teacher behaves in the college classroom—an aim that lends itself to a case study design.35 Case study research starts from the desire to derive an in-depth understanding of a case set in a real-world context.36 It is particularly apropos when: (a) the research questions are about “how” or “why”; (b) it is not possible to manipulate behaviors of those involved in the study; and (c) the boundaries are not clear between the phenomenon and context (i.e., the behaviors of a master teacher have to be considered within the context of teaching).
This particular case study was holistic, descriptive, and exploratory. It was holistic because I focused on a single case throughout the study (Kirk). It was descriptive because my goal was to describe a situation not normally accessible to investigators in its real-life context: the in-class behaviors of a master teacher. It was exploratory because I had no clear set of behaviors that I was looking to observe when I began the study.
The Context: College Classroom
I observed Kirk teaching an introductory statistics course during the spring 2018 semester. The course is designed for undergraduate students (typically sophomores) and covers topics ranging from descriptive statistics to inferential statistics. It is required for all psychology majors, but students from other majors also take the course. In the semester I observed, eighty-five students were enrolled.
The Data Collection
There are two components to the introductory statistics course: recitation and lab. I only observed the recitation component, which met three days per week for fifty minutes. I observed approximately 95 percent of the classes Kirk taught for the semester (approximately forty classes). The classes I missed were those in which an exam was administered, I had a schedule conflict, or Kirk was absent. Before beginning the data collection, I obtained Kirk’s permission and the approval of my institution’s IRB.
All classroom data were gathered through direct observation by a single observer. I sat in the same seat every class (front row, stage right), which allowed me to focus on Kirk instead of the students. I have taught similar courses in the past, so the content was already familiar to me. This allowed me to focus on Kirk’s teaching behaviors. For each class, I brought a notepad and made notes about teaching behaviors. As this study was exploratory, I did not have a prioiri criteria about what behaviors I would or would not record. Instead, I made field notes about any behaviors I saw related to teaching.37
In addition to classroom observations, I also reviewed documents Kirk has authored about teaching statistics.38
The Data Analysis
For the data analysis, I searched my notes for themes (i.e., patterns of behavior that have meaning).39 Specifically, I went through the data as I gathered them and noted when I saw repetitions of behaviors. I then went through these repetitions to see if they could be further combined to form meaningful themes. Eventually, I settled on five distinct classes of behavior patterns, which I then named and defined.
Results
In what follows, I provide the five themes that emerged from my observations. They are presented in no particular order. In Table 3.2, I integrated these findings with the master teacher qualities from the literature on perceived teaching excellence.
Levity
One of the most frequent behaviors I observed from Kirk was the use of humor. This made the general climate of the course positive and lighthearted. Moreover, it allowed Kirk to regain student focus when he judged that students were not being engaged.
Kirk employed many forms of humor, ranging from anecdotal (e.g., funny stories about statisticians mentioned in the textbook) to self-deprecating (e.g., making light of himself when he made an error) to situational (e.g., making funny statements about difficult content such as “boy this is hard and confusing, isn’t it!”). His humor was never caustic or juvenile, and never at the expense of any particular student.
Perhaps the most unique way Kirk introduced levity was one of the ways he regained students’ attention: short “dance breaks.” Kirk and his wife are award-winning ballroom dancers.40 So, he spontaneously broke into a ballroom dance (e.g., foxtrot, rumba) multiple times throughout the semester. This noticeably piqued students’ attention from which Kirk would segue back into teaching.
Rigor
Kirk approached the course’s content rigorously and never “dumbed down” the material. For example, it was not uncommon for him to work through proofs or derivations when applicable. Moreover, he had very high expectations of his students. He frequently told them that he expected that they be able to demonstrate knowledge about not only how to calculate a given statistic but also when to apply it and how to interpret the results. His tests reflected these expectations.
Care and Respect for Students
Kirk demonstrated respect for his students and care that they did well in his course. This is not surprising given its commonality among master teachers.41 What was surprising was how Kirk went about doing this given the inherent difficulties in this endeavor with larger class enrollments.
Kirk’s demonstration of respect and care was most frequently evident in his purposeful effort to know his students. He had students complete a seating chart after the first few classes. He did not use this chart just to take attendance or call students by name during class. In addition, he came at least 10–minutes early to every class and used the seating chart to have informal conversations with students before class began. Kirk explained the origins of this practice:
One day I got to the lecture hall ten minutes earlier than usual. Instead of standing at the front of the hall, I wandered up and down the isles [sic]. During this time, I had a number of conversations