A Brief History of the Teacher Behavior Checklist
Abstract
We summarize the history of the development of the Teacher Behavior Checklist and review examples of its utility for studying excellence in teaching across cultures and contexts.
The literature on excellent or master teaching is replete with lists describing the qualities of excellent teachers. For example, Lowman's (1995) study of teaching award nominees produced descriptors such as enthusiastic, knowledgeable, concerned, inspiring, helpful, humorous, caring, interesting, encouraging, and challenging. As Lowman observed, qualities of excellent college and university teachers can be divided into two categories: teachers’ technical skills and their personality and communication skills, a perspective also supported by Palmer (1998) and Bain (2004a; 2004b). However, such lists provide no operational definitions of the specific teacher behaviors that reflect the qualities of master teachers. It is one thing to advise an aspiring teacher to be more enthusiastic, caring, or fair, but altogether a different thing to pinpoint precisely those behaviors that represent enthusiasm, caring, fairness, and so on. To that end, Buskist et al. (2002) developed an inventory of twenty-eight qualities and their attendant behaviors, which they dubbed the Teacher Behavior Checklist (TBC) building on a foundation of research reviewed by Gurung, Richmond, and Boysen (Chapter 1 of this volume).
Initial Development of the TBC
Buskist et al. (2002) asked 114 undergraduates to list three qualities of a master college or university teacher. So that their participants had a common starting point, the researchers defined a master teacher as a teacher from whom students have learned much and enjoyed the learning process. This procedure produced a list of forty-seven qualities. The researchers then gave this list to 184 other undergraduates and asked them to list three specific behaviors exemplifying each of those qualities. Based on these student-generated behavioral descriptors, Buskist et al. (2002) then collapsed overlapping categories, to form a list of twenty-eight qualities. Table 2.1 lists each of the twenty-eight qualities and their respective corresponding behavioral anchors in alphabetical order.
| Item | Teacher Qualities and Corresponding Behaviors |
|---|---|
| 1 | Accessible (posts office hours, gives out phone number, and e-mail information) |
| 2 | Approachable/personable (smiles, greets students, initiates conversations, invites questions, responds respectfully to student comments) |
| 3 | Authoritative (establishes clear course rules; maintains classroom order; speaks in a loud, strong voice) |
| 4 | Confident (speaks clearly, makes eye contact, and answers questions correctly) |
| 5 | Creative and interesting (experiments with teaching methods; uses technological devices to support and enhance lectures; uses interesting, relevant, and personal examples; not monotone) |
| 6 | Effective communicator (speaks clearly/loudly; uses precise English; gives clear, compelling examples) |
| 7 | Encourages and cares for students (provides praise for good student work, helps students who need it, offers bonus points and extra credit, and knows student names) |
| 8 | Enthusiastic about teaching and about topic (smiles during class, prepares interesting class activities, uses gestures and expressions of emotion to emphasize important points, and arrives on time for class) |
| 9 | Establishes daily and academic term goals (prepares/follows the syllabus and has goals for each class) |
| 10 | Flexible/open-minded (changes calendar of course events when necessary, will meet at hours outside of office hours, pays attention to students when they state their opinions, accepts criticism from others, and allows students to do make-up work when appropriate) |
| 11 | Good listener (does not interrupt students while they are talking, maintains eye contact, and asks questions about points that students are making) |
| 12 | Happy/positive attitude/humorous (tells jokes and funny stories, laughs with students) |
| 13 | Humble (admits mistakes, never brags, and does not take credit for others’ successes) |
| 14 | Knowledgeable about subject matter (easily answers students’ questions, does not read straight from the book or notes, and uses clear and understandable examples) |
| 15 | Prepared (brings necessary materials to class, is never late for class, provides outlines of class discussion) |
| 16 | Presents current information (relates topic to current, real-life situations; uses recent videos, magazines, and newspapers to demonstrate points; talks about current topics; uses new or recent texts) |
| 17 | Professional (dresses nicely [neat and clean shoes, slacks, blouses, dresses, shirts, ties] and no profanity) |
| 18 | Promotes class discussion (asks controversial or challenging questions during class, gives points for class participation, involves students in group activities during class) |
| 19 | Promotes critical thinking/intellectually stimulating (asks thoughtful questions during class, uses essay questions on tests and quizzes, assigns homework, and holds group discussions/activities) |
| 20 | Provides constructive feedback (writes comments on returned work, answers students’ questions, and gives advice on test-taking) |
| 21 | Punctuality/manages class time (arrives to class on time/early, dismisses class on time, presents relevant materials in class, leaves time for questions, keeps appointments, returns work in a timely way) |
| 22 | Rapport (makes class laugh through jokes and funny stories, initiates and maintains class discussions, knows student names, interacts with students before and after class) |
| 23 | Realistic expectations of students/fair testing and grading (covers material to be tested during class, writes relevant test questions, does not overload students with reading, teaches at an appropriate level for the majority of students in the course, curves grades when appropriate) |
| 24 | Respectful (does not humiliate or embarrass students in class, is polite to students [says thank you and please, etc.], does not interrupt students while they are talking, does not talk down to students) |
| 25 | Sensitive and persistent (makes sure students understand material before moving to new material, holds extra study sessions, repeats information when necessary, asks questions to check student understanding) |
| 26 | Strives to be a better teacher (requests feedback on his/her teaching ability from students, continues learning [attends workshops, etc. on teaching], and uses new teaching methods) |
| 27 | Technologically competent (knows now to use a computer, knows how to use e-mail with students, knows how to use overheads during class, has a Web page for classes) |
| 28 | Understanding (accepts legitimate excuses for missing class or coursework, is available before/after class to answer questions, does not lose temper at students, takes extra time to discuss difficult concepts) |
Buskist et al. then administered the distilled list to a new sample of over 900 psychology undergraduates and over one hundred faculty members, who ranked the qualities by selecting the ten most important qualities (i.e., the “Top 10”). Students and faculty agreed on six of the Top 10 qualities: being knowledgeable, being enthusiastic, being respectful, having realistic expectations, being approachable and personable, and being creative and interesting.
Differences in student and faculty Top 10 selections uniformly reflected different emphases. Faculty emphasized techniques of teaching in their Top 10 (promoting critical thinking, being prepared, being a master communicator, and presenting current information), whereas students stressed social aspects of the student–teacher relationship (being understanding, being happy, encouraging and caring for students, and being flexible). Schaeffer et al. (2003) replicated this study using a large sample of community college students and faculty and found an 80% overlap in student–faculty agreement of their Top 10 selection with similar discrepancies. Data from both studies strongly supported Lowman's (1995) two-factor model of excellent teaching.
The TBC as an Instrument of Evaluating Teaching
Keeley, Smith, and Buskist (2006) converted the TBC into a teaching assessment instrument by adding a set of instructions and a Likert-type scale. The instructions were similar to those of typical student evaluations of teaching (SET) instruments using Likert scale anchors ranging from 1 = My teacher always exhibits/has exhibited these behaviors reflective of this quality to 5 = My teacher never exhibits/has never exhibited these behaviors reflective of this quality.
In their first study, Keeley et al. (2006) asked students to rate their current psychology instructor using both the converted TBC and the standard university SET. Exploratory factor analysis yielded two subscales: “Caring and Supportive,” and “Professional Competency and Communication Skills,” supporting Lowman's (1995) model of outstanding teaching. Keeley et al. found excellent construct validity for the TBC as evidenced by its ability to significantly discriminate across different professors on the two subscales. These results were consistent with the standard university SET results. Additionally, internal consistency was quite high, α = 0.93.
In Study 2, Keeley et al. (2006) administered the converted TBC evaluation instrument to large sample of undergraduates twice in one semester. Confirmatory factor analyses of both the mid-semester and end-of-semester assessments yielded a hybrid model, suggesting the two factors from Study 1 load onto a higher-order factor of excellent teaching. They found a Pearson r correlation coefficient of 0.71 between Time 1 and 2 for the entire scale. The caring and supportive subscale showed a high correlation (r = 0.68) across time points, as did the professional competency and communication subscale (r = 0.72). Thus, the TBC shows acceptable fit for a parsimonious and easily interpretable two-factor model solution with high internal consistency and good test–retest reliability.
Key Related Findings
Several notable studies further investigated the properties of the TBC. For example, Keeley, Furr, and Buskist (2010) asked undergraduates at Auburn University and Appalachian State University to rate one example each of their best, worst, and most recent college instructors. They found a high degree of correspondence between ratings at the two schools. They also found the quality of the teacher to be the strongest discriminator of ratings, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the TBC's performance to differentiate extreme cases.
Keeley et al. (2013) investigated whether student ratings of teacher behavior using the TBC are susceptible to ceiling effects, halo effects, or both. Ceiling effects occur when the measure's scale is too narrow to successfully discriminate at higher levels of responding. The halo effect is the tendency of raters to generalize from one quality to overall ratings. Keeley et al. (2013) asked students to watch videos in which instructors intentionally exhibited good or bad qualities while lecturing. Students rated lecturers using either five-, seven-, or nine-point TBC Likert rating scales. The researchers found both halo and ceiling effects, which remained regardless of the range of the scale used, and concluded that specific instructions about how to use the scale might be a better way to counter those biases rather than simply manipulating the Likert scale range. Thus, they exposed potential vulnerabilities of the TBC, but pointed to a way to prevent them.
More recently, Keeley, Ismail, and Buskist (2016) compared the “Top 10” selections of master teacher qualities of national-award winning teachers of psychology (individuals who had won one or more of nine different teaching awards at the national level) to other previously gathered data from nonawarding winning faculty samples. The two sets of participants shared many similarities in their Top 10 lists, but the national award-winning teachers valued the TBC categories of rapport and preparedness more highly than did their peers. This finding strongly suggests that a key difference between excellent teachers and their average counterparts lies in being better prepared for class and in developing strong and supportive academic relationships with students.
TBC Findings across Contexts
Empirical research articles citing the TBC now number over 100 and have produced remarkably similar results, spanning diverse contexts and areas of study. Below we review a small but representative sample of these publications to showcase the utility of the TBC to investigate excellent teaching across diverse settings.
Several researchers have replicated the Buskist et al.'s (2002) original TBC “Top 10” master teaching qualities study. Many of these studies have examined perceptions of students across nations, majors, and year in school. For example, Jõemaa (2013) found Estonian students ranked being knowledgeable and enthusiastic as the most important qualities of excellent teachers. Younger students in this study emphasized the importance of rapport-related variables to excellent teaching whereas more senior students tended to value TBC qualities and behaviors more similar to faculty participants.
Liu, Keeley, and Buskist (2015) compared student perceptions of excellent teaching in a Chinese sample to previously collected Japanese and American samples. They found Chinese, Japanese, and American student TBC rankings coincided on being prepared, being sensitive and persistent, and being understanding. Chinese students preferred more structure and placed less priority on interpersonal aspects of teaching. Chinese and Japanese students showed significant differences from each other, possibly reflecting differential aspects in Western influence and development.
In a follow-up study, Liu, Keeley, and Buskist (2016) found that Chinese psychology, education, and chemical engineering students agreed on their Top 5 qualities: being respectful, knowledgeable, and confident; striving to be a better teacher; and having realistic expectations. Psychology and education majors’ rankings were similar to each other and differed from those of engineering students, perhaps because these students belonged to the same college. Thus, students’ perceptions of excellent teaching may be different depending on their field of study, nation of origin, and age. Such studies aid in fleshing out the utility of the TBC across different contexts, providing regionalized norms against which teachers can gauge their effectiveness.
Researchers also examined faculty perceptions of excellent teaching. Ismail and Groccia (2017) found foreign- and US-educated faculty ranked the Top 10 TBC qualities with 80% agreement. With respect to differences, foreign-educated faculty ranked effective communication and caring higher, whereas US-educated faculty valued enthusiasm more. McConner (2017) found similar results in historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). However, HBCU faculty ranked being accessible, approachable, and caring higher than faculty from primarily white institutions. This finding empirically confirms the tendency of HBCUs to be especially supportive of their students.
Many other researchers have also replicated Buskist et al. (2002) by comparing student and faculty ratings of TBC items. Hart and Wang (2016) found a 60% agreement between accounting faculty and students in items each group of participants selected in their Top 10 qualities and behaviors of master teaching. Likewise, these researchers found that, with regard to differences in items placed in their respective Top 10 lists, students selected items related to the caring and supportive subscale whereas faculty selected items related to the professional competency and communication skills. Noll (2017) reported similar findings with nursing students and faculty.
The TBC as a SET Instrument
Other researchers have employed the TBC as a tool to assess and improve teaching and learning. For example, Filz and Gurung (2013) found eighteen TBC items moderately predicted helpfulness, accessibility, and perceived qualification of undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs). In another example illustrating evaluative aspects of the TBC, Landrum and Stowell (2013) created a film library of silent videos demonstrating master teaching for training purposes. In one step of their library project, they found eight TBC items to possess good reliability and validity for rating teachers’ nonverbal teaching behavior.
Other studies have used the TBC to examine how syllabus and course designs affect student ratings of their teachers. Jenkins, Bugeja, and Barber (2014) found that, relative to descriptions of course content, detailed restrictive policies in a syllabus were associated with higher student TBC ratings of the teacher. Similarly, Richmond et al. (2016) found teachers who wrote a learner-oriented rather than teacher-oriented syllabus received significantly higher student TBC ratings.
Additionally, Troisi (2014) found teachers using student management teams—small groups of students who worked with the instructor to enhance the course—improved instructor ratings as measured by the TBC. Smith, Cook, and Buskist (2011) showed that students’ use of the TBC to evaluate their teachers was relatively unaffected by the course grades, which is a concern for most SETs.
In short, the TBC is both an effective instrument for studying the qualities and attendant behaviors of excellent teachers and a useful metric for student assessment of the quality of instruction they receive from their teachers. Along these lines, the TBC is both diagnostic and prescriptive: Used properly, the TBC allows instructors to pinpoint specific behavioral shortcomings in their teaching as well as suggesting concrete actions teachers can implement to improve the quality of their classroom instruction.
Final Considerations
The TBC is sensitive to the instructional contexts in which it is used, and is useful for studying and understanding excellence in teaching, for example, relative to students’ ages (Jõemaa 2013), students’ major area of study (Liu et al. 2016; Hart and Wang 2016; Noll 2017), location of faculty education (Ismail and Groccia 2017), type of degree sought (Schaeffer et al. 2003), academic setting (McConner 2017), cultural context (Keeley, Christopher, and Buskist 2012; Liu et al. 2015), and similarities and differences between students and faculty perspectives on what constitutes excellent teaching (Buskist et al. 2002). In addition to being a basic research tool to investigate the habits and practices of master teachers, the TBC has been shown to be a useful tool for evaluating teaching at all levels and successfully discriminates among differences in instructional quality. A chief advantage of the TBC as a SET instrument is that it provides detailed and useful feedback to teachers with regard to how to change or otherwise modify their behavior to become more effective, if not excellent, teachers.
Biographies
Lauren A. J. Kirby is a doctoral candidate in the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at Auburn University.
Jessica N. Busler is a postdoctoral fellow in the cognitive and behavioral sciences at Auburn University.
Jared W. Keeley is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University.
William Buskist is the Distinguished Professor in the Teaching of Psychology Emeritus at Auburn University.
