Improving teaching effectiveness: The influence of workshops at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia

The purpose of this study was to determine if brief workshops on effective teaching techniques can improve the teaching of university professors. Improvement of teaching was assessed by changes in scores from student evaluations.;The study used a quasi-experimental design of two experimental groups (workshop and workshop with feedback groups) and a comparison group (without workshop). At the end of the experiment the outcomes of the three groups were compared. Student evaluations of teaching were used as the dependent measure. Evaluations were obtained at the beginning of the term, prior to the workshop, and at the end of the term, after participants had completed the workshops.;The participants in this study were eighteen Saudi professors of undergraduate students at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. Each of these professors had only three to four years experience in teaching; the sample was divided between men and women professors.;Students (N= 472) completed a questionnaire in Arabic designed to measure the effectiveness of the teaching. The questionnaire contained 20 items in three domains: instructor, learning, and external learning environment.;Students' evaluations were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA with paired t-test and independent samples t-test as follow-up tests, and the results indicated there were no significant changes for the comparison group, the group that did not participate in any of the workshops. The workshop group (experimental group), showed a slight but statistically significant increase in teaching effectiveness. The means scores for the workshop with feedback group (experimental group) indicated that teaching effectiveness for the workshop with feedback group increased significantly and the participation in a workshop plus feedback on teaching performance will improve teaching effectiveness even more than simply participating in a workshop.