Abstract:

Educators adopt a range of traditional and non-traditional teaching practices to improve student learning. Traditional teaching may be described as the formal delivery of notes by a lecturer with (perhaps) a question and answer session included. All other teaching practices are considered to be non-traditional or innovative, engaging students in active learning rather than having them passively receive information from their instructors. Most of the research conducted to date on teaching and learning practices focuses on the educator, fewer studies explore the student voice. Our paper reports findings from a larger study conducted in the business school of a higher education institution, and addresses this gap.

Focus group interviews were used to garner the views and experiences of final year undergraduate business students regarding traditional and innovative teaching practices.

Our findings suggest that students favour traditional teaching practices for quantitative subjects, but prefer a mix of methods, both traditional and innovative for other modules. Innovative practices such as recorded lectures, case studies and the use of real-life examples were consistently rated as important in supporting student learning. An additional and unexpected finding from the study highlights the significance of the teacher-student rapport in influencing the learning experience.

Keywords:

Student perspective, higher education, traditional teaching practices, innovative teaching practices, teacher-student rapport.