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Approaches to teaching inventory in higher education: An exploration from the Latin-American perspective

Abstract:

The present paper explores teachers' approaches to teach in Higher Education and the applicability of the instrument used to measure these approaches in a Latin-American setting. The instrument used is the revised version of 22 items of the "Approaches to Teaching Inventory" (ATI-R 22) which delineates two main categories of approaches: student centred and teacher centred. The data in this study was gathered from 171 university teachers teaching at several disciplines representing 23 university careers in a Latin-American university The tool's validation was done with AMOS using the structural equations method showing satisfactory results. The data obtained was analyzed with SPSS software and underwent a descriptive and inferential analysis. The results of this research indicate that 59.65% of teachers identified their teaching approach as focused on the student, while a 35.09% of teachers identified their teaching as teacher centered and 5.26% showed an undefined profile. However, when analyzing the correlations between the subscales of the questionnaire: intentions and strategies, a tendency to focus on the "information transmission-teacher centered" approach to teaching was found on the three groups. Subsequently, the instrument and information obtained in this study will be used for future research, as they are part of a study of bigger proportions.