Perceived Instructor Enthusiasm and Student Achievement

Abstract

"Enthusiasm comes from the Greek, where it meant ""possessed by a god.” An enthusiastic person is someone who literally is inspired by a powerful force. It is used frequently as a descriptor of effective teachers. This research studied the relationship between instructor enthusiasm, as measured by an Enthusiasm Awareness Index, and student achievement. Results indicated that performance in the classroom as measured by exam scores and final grades varies minimally if at all with perceived instructor enthusiasm. This is at variance with previously cited research. The article presents and discusses several reasons for this variance. Enthusiasm is a valuable quality for anyone, regardless of the kind of work one does. The word “enthusiasm” is derived from a combination of Greek words meaning, “possessed by a god.” An enthusiastic person is someone who literally is inspired by a powerful force. In the literature on enthusiastic teaching, the word usually means “stimulating,” “animated,” “energetic,” or “mobile’.’ Most would agree that an enthusiastic classroom environment is a more interesting and stimulating place to be than in a dull or stolid environment. But, what effect, if any, does teacher enthusiasm have on student achievement? The available research on enthusiastic teaching suggests a positive relationship between teacher enthusiasm and student achievement. Cruichshank (3) found that, all other things being equal, a teacher who presents material in an animated and stimulating manner will have students who achieve better on tests than a teacher who does not. Another group of researchers tested retention in college students after experiencing presentations from “static” speakers and “dynamic” speakers. Static speakers read from a manuscript, used no gestures, had no direct eye contact, and kept vocal inflection to a minimum. Dynamic speakers delivered presentations from memory, with extensive use of gesturing, eye contact, vocal inflection and animation. The mean score of the students who heard the dynamic speaker was significantly higher than those who heard the static speaker (1). The implications of this study are that energy level not only contributes to retention but to attention. Lastly, in his review of the research on enthusiastic teaching, Rosenshine (4) identified behavioral components of enthusiastic teaching and classified them into two categories: high inference and low inference variables. High inference variables measured behaviors that required considerable inferring from what was observed or heard in the classroom. They included variables such as mobility, animation, energy or expressiveness. Low inference variables measured those behaviors that required an observer to classify teacher movements into objective categories, such as, words per minute, amount of gesturing, or movements per minute. Rosen- shine found that high ratings on both categories of variables, as measured by independent observers, related positively to measures of pupil achievement. Rosenshine concluded that animated teacher behaviors also may serve as secondary reinforcers; that is, hearing or seeing an energetic teacher “may positively reinforce certain responses of the pupils during the lesson” (l+,p. 510). In the studies cited above, teacher enthusiasm was measured by an observer or by a person external to the classroom or learning environment. In the present student instructor enthusiasm is measured by student responses to a questionnaire, the Enthusiasm Awareness Index (EAI). This study has two purposes: first, to introduce the EAI as an instrument in which college students may rate their instructors on enthusiasm behaviors; and secondly, to use the EAI as an aid to study the effects of enthusiasm on student achievement. More specifically, it asks the question: What is the relationship between perceived instructor enthusiasm as measured by an Enthusiasm Awareness Index (See Appendix 1), and student performance as measured by two exam scores and final grades? "