Personal Impacts of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Experience
The use of undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) has increased in recent years at a number of institutions, especially in active-learning and high-enrollment introductory courses. Currently, there is research demonstrating their benefit to the departments they work in, the students, and the shor...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Indiana University Office of Scholarly Publishing
2022-06-01
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| Series: | Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/josotl/article/view/31306 |
| _version_ | 1811236931089989632 |
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| author | Christopher J Felege Cheryl J Hunter Susan N Ellis-Felege |
| author_facet | Christopher J Felege Cheryl J Hunter Susan N Ellis-Felege |
| author_sort | Christopher J Felege |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
The use of undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) has increased in recent years at a number of institutions, especially in active-learning and high-enrollment introductory courses. Currently, there is research demonstrating their benefit to the departments they work in, the students, and the short-term impacts of the experience on the UTAs. However, no study to date has investigated the long-term impacts of the UTA experience on the participants themselves, and a number of studies call for such an investigation. This research sought to fill that gap in understanding by utilizing a Grounded Theory approach to investigate the perceptions of participants who had served as an UTA in the biology department at a large research institution in the upper Midwest. This research found strong consensus among participants that the UTA experience offers overwhelmingly positive personal benefits including improved self-confidence, a sense of personal reward, and a sense of community that resulted from working with faculty members, and the ability to balance and self-regulate a variety of time commitments.
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| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T12:16:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-402f31ba50b14dceac2c62662b56e20f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1527-9316 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T12:16:35Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | Indiana University Office of Scholarly Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning |
| spelling | doaj.art-402f31ba50b14dceac2c62662b56e20f2022-12-22T03:33:24ZengIndiana University Office of Scholarly PublishingJournal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning1527-93162022-06-0122210.14434/josotl.v22i2.31306Personal Impacts of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant ExperienceChristopher J Felege0Cheryl J Hunter1Susan N Ellis-Felege2University of North DakotaUniversity of North DakotaUniversity of North Dakota The use of undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) has increased in recent years at a number of institutions, especially in active-learning and high-enrollment introductory courses. Currently, there is research demonstrating their benefit to the departments they work in, the students, and the short-term impacts of the experience on the UTAs. However, no study to date has investigated the long-term impacts of the UTA experience on the participants themselves, and a number of studies call for such an investigation. This research sought to fill that gap in understanding by utilizing a Grounded Theory approach to investigate the perceptions of participants who had served as an UTA in the biology department at a large research institution in the upper Midwest. This research found strong consensus among participants that the UTA experience offers overwhelmingly positive personal benefits including improved self-confidence, a sense of personal reward, and a sense of community that resulted from working with faculty members, and the ability to balance and self-regulate a variety of time commitments. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/josotl/article/view/31306Undergraduate TeachingPersonal ImpactsConfidenceRewardsCommunity Balance Self-Regulation |
| spellingShingle | Christopher J Felege Cheryl J Hunter Susan N Ellis-Felege Personal Impacts of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Experience Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Undergraduate Teaching Personal Impacts Confidence Rewards Community Balance Self-Regulation |
| title | Personal Impacts of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Experience |
| title_full | Personal Impacts of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Experience |
| title_fullStr | Personal Impacts of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Experience |
| title_full_unstemmed | Personal Impacts of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Experience |
| title_short | Personal Impacts of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Experience |
| title_sort | personal impacts of the undergraduate teaching assistant experience |
| topic | Undergraduate Teaching Personal Impacts Confidence Rewards Community Balance Self-Regulation |
| url | https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/josotl/article/view/31306 |
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