Raeleen D’Agostino Mautner, Ph.D.

* Di solito, mi piacerebbe avere il feedback dai miei colleghi italiani, magari con il traguardo di eventuale collaborazioni,il tipo ricerca transculturale (italia-usa)

A task analysis of college teaching identifies six duties: design,communication, analysis of content, management, evaluation and leadership (Adjunct Mentor, 1992). Although there is a scarcity of leadership behavior definition in the literature, as it applies to the college teaching role, both the American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles and the American Association of University Professors' Statement on Ethics describe ethical behaviors that fit this concept (Mautner, 1992).

The relationship we have with our students is an intricate one, where an inevitable disparity in power exists. The onus is on the teacher to insure that in the leadership role of the educational process, ethics will have its place so that students receive the guidance and information they need without feeling oppressed or insignificant. It is also important from the teacher's perspective, to receive feedback, similar to the "feedback up" system used by corporate leaders (Gable & Wolf, 1993), to help identify and modify those behaviors that are not in line with "walking the talk", if we consider our professional ethics codes on par with corporate value statements.

All parties involved in the educational process stand to benefit by the instructor's increased leadership behaviors. Student satisfaction , increased enrollment, increased feelings of pride, self-efficacy and accomplishment on the part of the teacher can be just some of the benefits that ensue. This instrument's results can be shared with one's classes, and re-administered as a follow-up tool periodically, as they do in the Fortune 500 companies (Gable & Wolf, 1993).

Webster's dictionary defines the verb "to lead" as meaning "to guide or conduct; to direct and govern; to precede; to entice; to influence, to spend; to begin. It is easy to understand why the issue of "control" comes to mind when we think of leadership. Some degree of control is inevitable given the logistics of student-teacher dynamics. There are those, in fact, who feel it is a necessity for students to perceive teachers as being in control in order to feel satisfied with the latter's leadership (Lowman, 1984). Leadership behaviors as identified by professional ethics codes (APA,1992; AAUP,1987) emphasize respecting the rights, autonomy and privacy of the student, while fulfilling our duties as teachers. Examples of such behaviors include beginning and ending class on time, embracing differences in scholarly and student viewpoints (to foster academic freedom), showing consistency and dependability, respecting one's own rules, allotting equal time for students, regardless of their scholastic performance, keeping current in one's field, and having the courage to stand up to wrongdoing. According to Brown and Atkins (1988), a college teacher can be either authoritative or facilitative in leadership style. An authoritative style would lend itself to behaviors such as giving advice, giving information and interpretation, directly challenging beliefs and actions; facilitative behaviors, conversely, might include eliciting information, encouraging problem-solving, being supportive, etc.. One may either encourage student comment and support it,perhaps gently encouraging the student to think it through a bit more carefully or confront and challenge it, even oppose it directly. There is much room for variation in leadership style, and factors such as the personality of the instructor and the needs of the class have to be considered when interpreting the results of the Leadership Evaluation Form.

Fifty-eight undergraduate students at a Connecticut University University were asked to define what they considered to be instructor leadership behaviors. These responses were analyzed and placed into categories such as "communicates clearly"; "is knowledgeable about subject matter"; "has sense of humor"; "guides/gives the class direction", etc.. The most popular responses were kept, while the least popular (i.e., those answered by 2 or 3 students, such as "dresses well", and "becomes a friend and invites me over to his/her house1v), were omitted. The popular responses were matched to the appropriate ethical code behaviors, as well as leadership behaviors as defined by the literature dealing with effective college teaching (Brown & Atkins,1988); Lowman(1990); rookfield(1990); and Eble(1988),Gullette(1984)). The 12 most mentioned behaviors comprise the items in the Leadership Evaluation Form (Appendix A).

The generally consistent findings of research conducted by the author resulted in a model of leadership behaviors in college teaching and an instrument designed to assess them (Appendix B contains the full computer output).
This instrument, the Leadership Evaluation Form, is appropriate for college students in any subject area and consists of two scales:teaching style and organizational style. These scales are defined below.

Teachers who receive high scores on this scale demonstrate role model behaviors in class, provide clear direction when presenting a lecture, enthusiastically impart information, have the courage to explore new ideas, use multiple methods to get important points across and make the subject understandable.

Teachers who receive high scores on this scale present syllabi that clearly establish course rules, start and end class according to established rules, come to class prepared, are well-organized and stay focused on the goals of the lecture.

 Because leadership behaviors can be conceived of in temporal terms, items are measured on a 5-point Likert scale. The frequency dimension ranges from Never to Always (i.e., 1 =never, 2=seldom, 3=about half the time 4=usually, 5=always) so that students responses to items by indicating the frequency with which they view their instructor as displaying these behaviors A high exhibition of leadership behaviors is reflected by high scores on the items.

The LEF can be administered to small or large college classes in approximately 10-15 minutes. Its use although piloted on, is not limited to psychology students.

Since this instrument is intended to be used as a self-evaluative/feedback measure, the instructor herself/himself would pass Out the forms and leave the room for the required amount of time until all forms are completed.

Items can either be on the same sheet as responses are given, or on a separate form in conjunction with a standardized answer sheet.

Students should be assured of the confidentiality of their responses. As stated on the LEF itself, their answers will in no way affect grades. The purpose of the instrument may even be explained to them, as a way of assuring them.

Items can either be hand or machine scored, depending on which answer form is used. Since there are no negative items, nothing has to be reverse scored.

The teaching style scale contains seven items . Representative items relate to the way the teacher presents a lecture and the enthusiasm he/she imparts when presenting information. The organizational style scale contains five items that deal with how well organized and prepared the teacher is. A representative item would be "stays focused on the goals of the lecture".

The LEF was administered to 1 28 college students at Southern Connecticut State University. Appendix B shows the means and standard deviations for the sample for each item.

Three suggestions for increasing leadership behaviors include: (1) consideration of applicable ethical code standards, (2) a review of the literature on effective college teaching, and (3) the use of the LEF to identify and repeatedly to modify targeted behaviors.

Because of the vulnerability that exists in disparity of power relationships, it is important to insure that our leadership role is carried out in a way that benefits, and above all "does not harm". Hence, relevant ethical codes should be reviewed from the start (i.e , APA-EP; AAUP Statement on Ethics, Beuchamp & Childress Medical Ethics, etc.). According to such codes, leadership might be defined in terms of the role model we provide when we teach with courage, respect and fairness. We insure academic autonomy by setting an example that encourages students to maximize their full scholarly potential (Dressel, 1982). We promote independent thinking by welcoming student inquiry. We guide intellectually through the accurate dispersion of knowledge and information.It is importantto avoid dual relationships as well as favoritism despite the fact that boundaries are not always that clear-cut (Tabachnick, Keith-Spiegel & Pope,1991). Being knowledgeable about one's subject matter, includes keeping up with the current research thus setting the stage for intellectual curiosity and growth. Academic courage might include approaching and arguingcontroversial issues, so that students can take our lead and extend themselves to meet their full human potential (Mautner, 1992). We model justice when we deliver what we promise, in a fair, equitable manner. Showing up for class on time, keeping to the rules established at the onset,and grading objectively are all examples of ethical leadership behaviors, as are modeling tolerance, consistency and dependability. In sum, our professional ethical codes can be our guides in carrying out leadership duties in a positive, beneficial way.

Many well-written books have been published about effective college teaching techniques. Often in specific fields there are journals written on teaching (i.e., Teaching of Psychology). One way to increase leadership behaviors in teaching is to review these materials periodically for fresh ideas. Brown & Atkins(1988), for example, wrote an informative book entitled Effective Teaching in Higher Education. The book includes a number of sample rating scales to self-evaluate various teaching behaviors such as lecturing. Items would include "The lecture was clearly structured";

"This lecture seemed well-prepared", etc. The book also examines the latest research on effective teaching techniques that was examined after a compilation of student responses to survey questions. Students, for example, most commonly complain about an instructor's inaudibility, incoherence, neglecting to emphasize key points, etc. Such information, if we are not defensive about our own inadequacies, can be instrumental in our own growth as teachers. According to most authors, effective teaching is systematic, stimulating and caring. There is a distinction made between successful teaching and effective teaching. The former involves a student learning what was meant to be learned in the course. The latter goes a step beyond success and concerns itself also with the appropriate values (Brown & Atkins). Again, similar to the corporate "feed back-up" evaluation system (Gable & Wolf 1993) whose purpose is to assess who is "walking the talk" of the corporate value statement, instructor leadership can be based on both the relevant ethical codes and effective teaching techniques, which really are inseparable.

In using the LEF as constructive feedback, Brookfield (1990) suggests we go so far as to let our students evaluate our evaluations. Student suggestions can indeed be valuable in planning and teaching a course. Their perceptions can at times be quite insightful. I am not suggesting that we abandon our own principles or individual style, but we can at least, by listening to student suggestions, model a behavior that we often wish to encourage them to do--self-evaluation. The skill of examining one's own work critically is of incalculable benefit (Brookfield.). In fact perfecting this skill can insure that we continue to sharpen our leadership skills on an ongoing basis. There may be no such thing as the perfect teacher--with the attributes of a comedian, actor,Greek philosopher and Renaissance artist, but through the use of self-evaluations and constructive feedback, if we are willing to consider it, we can at least help ourselves to continually evolve.

The data in this sample were submitted to principal component factor analyses followed by oblique rotation to examine construct validity in relation to the rationally derived categories identified in the content validation (described in Part 1). Since the 12 items used all had positive stems, none needed to be reversed scored. The analysis of the items resulted in two factors accounting for 75 percent of the total variance. There were no factors that had loadings less than .40 on both factors, or that did not contribute.to one of the meaningful factors. Thus, none were deleted. In examining the pattern matrix of the oblique rotation, items that loaded .40 or above (they were actually much higher) were retained as the primary items that defined the two derived factors. When an item loaded more than .40 on both factors, however, it was placed with the factor that made the most sense conceptually. The same items defined the two factors in the varimax rotation. The factors were then named with consideration to the wording and content of the items.

The factor correlation matrix indicates that the correlation between the two derived factors is .58. Theoretically these two constructs, then, could have been combined to generate a larger number of items defining an greater, overall construct.

Item statistics, including response frequency, means standard deviations and item-to-scale correlations were examined Alpha coefficients were generated for the Leadership Evaluation Form. The overall alpha reliability was at least a .90 for both of the derived factors.
The means and standard deviations were examined for extreme highs and lows, and associated with low standard deviations. The means for factor 2 were somewhat higher than for factor 1, but not of significant concern. Item intercorrelations were above .50. Item total statistics showed "rm"(role model behaviors) to be the lowest corrected item-total correlation with factor 1, yet,the overall alpha would not have been increased if the item were deleted. For factor 2, "syl" (syllabus clearly establishes...) was the lowest correlation, and also would not have increased overall alpha if deleted. Thus no changes were made in the items defining factor 1 or factor 2. The LEF items provided a clear factor structure with high alpha reliabilities, probably due to the simple nature of the items.

American Association of University Professors (1987). Statement on professional ethics. Academe,1,49.

American Psychological Association (1992). Ethical Principles of psychologists and code of conduct. Washington, D.C. Author.

Beauchamp & Childress (1985). Medical ethics. In Brown & Krager, L. (1985). Ethical issues in graduate education: faculty and student responsibilities. Journal of Higher Education, 56, 103-18.

Bequette, D. (1992). How to handle difficult students. The Adiunct Mentor, 4, 7.

Brookfield, Stephen, D. (1990). The skillful teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Brown, G., & Atkins, M. (1988), Effective teaching in higher education. New York: Methuen.

Eble, K., (1983). The aims of college teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Gable, R., & Wolf, M. (in press). Instrument development in the affective domain: aDDlications to school and corDorate environments. Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff

Gullette, M.,(ed), (1984),. The art and craft of teaching. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lowman, J., (1984). Mastering the technigues of teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Mautner, R. (1992). Research ethics and the classroom demonstration. Unpublished manuscript, University of Connecticut, Department of Educational Psychology, Connecticut.

Tabachnick, B., Keith-Spiegel, P., & Pope, K. (1991). Ethics of teaching: beliefs and behaviors of psychologists as educators. American Psychologist, ~ 506-515.

As a basis for continuing efforts at improvement, your instructor is concerned with guaging his/her leadership qualities with respect to teaching behaviors. A number of statements that pertain to instructional leadership follow. Please read each statement and decide how often it seems to describe your instructor. For each statement, use the appropriate number to indicate your answer. Use the following choices:
1 = never
2 = seldom
3 = about half the time
4 = usually
5 = always

PLEASE NOTE: A. THIS WILL IN NO WAY AFFECT YOUR GRADE

B. YOUR ANSWERS ARE COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS

This teacher('s):
1. demonstrates role-model behaviors in the classroom.
2. provides clear direction when presenting a lecture.
3. has the courage to explore new ideas.
4. enthusiastically imparts information.
5. has a sense of humor.
6. syllabus clearly establishes course rules.
7. starts and ends class according to established rules.
8. uses multiple methods of getting important points across.
9. comes prepared.
10. is well-organized.
11. ___ makes subject understandable.
12. stays focused on the goals of the lecture.