The impact of teaching styles on students' styles and academic outcomes

Within the education literature, the teacher styles have been dichotomized as either student-centered (e.g., teaching autonomy, acceptance of self and others as learning to voice ones' own opinions) and content-centered (e.g., learning the system, receiving knowledge and knowing content and learning how to speak like the experts). This study found support for the hypothesis that student-centered teachers (as judged by students) were more likely to have students who saw themselves as sharing this orientation. Similarly, content-centered teachers' students were more likely to share a content-oriented style. Student style, in turn, predicted the degree to which students demonstrated an intrinsic or an extrinsic motivational orientation. Path-analytic techniques revealed that student style variables served as a mediational link between teacher style and motivational orientation. A typology based on possible combinations of student-centered and content-centered teacher styles yielded four teacher types: (1) Primarily student-centered. (2) Primarily content-centered. (3) Highly student-centered and content-centered. (4) Moderately student-centered and content-centered.;Student-centered teachers and those high on both student-centeredness and content-centeredness had students who reported a higher student-centered orientation, themselves, as well as more intrinsic motivation. Content-centered teachers and those high on both student-centeredness, and content centeredness had students who were higher on content-centered student style and extrinsic motivation. Those findings were only demonstrated for students' ratings of teacher. Discussion focused on the need to not dichotomize teacher styles but examine how different combinations of teacher style variables impact student life, motivation, and orientation, as well as more objective outcomes such as grade point average and achievement scores.