Creation of an Observational Instrument to Operationalize the Transmission of Contents by University Teachers

Abstract

The quality of university teaching is a very important aspect for the educational process. This aspect makes necessary the evaluation of teaching professionals, being of special relevance the teaching behavior in the classroom. Observational methodology is the one used for evaluation, because it allows the study of usual behavior patterns and teaching strategies. We have used the instrument PROFUNDO-UNI, which is based on the “Teaching Functions Model”, to analyze the behaviors of the university teachers and professors in the class. The objective of this study is the detailed analysis of one of the teaching functions described in this instrument. This function is the professor’s explanation. It is a function of particular relevance in the educational setting, so it is very important to analyze it. For that, an instrument named Observational Protocol of the Explanation Function (OBEF) was created based on contributions of Educational Psychology. It allows the measurement of the resources and strategies used during the explanation. In this investigation, the psychometric goodness of fit has been tested through the analysis of reliability and homogeneity. Later, the behavior of a teacher from the University of La Laguna has been analyzed by using the instrument that was created.