Correlation between theoretical pedagogical knowledge and teaching performance of newly recruited technical teachers of western region of India - A case study

The purpose of this research through a case study was to find the correlation between theoretical knowledge about pedagogy and teaching performance of newly recruited and less experienced faculty members of Engineering Colleges and Polytechnics. In India the basic qualification for recruitment of faculty for Engineering and Polytechnic Colleges is post graduation in their respective branch of engineering and mostly they don?t have any education or training in pedagogy related aspects of teaching and learning. Therefore, the recruited novice teachers are inducted in the teaching profession by providing them a rigorous training of two weeks induction training programme on pedagogy and educational technology aspects. At the end of two weeks training, each teacher was asked to teach in a simulated teaching setting having a session of 15 minutes duration to demonstrate these teaching skills. Performances of teachers were assessed on different aspects on a five- point rating scale. To ascertain the understanding of teaching-learning process and pedagogy, an assessment test based on 50 multiple-choice questions related to education technology and pedagogy aspects such as domains of learning, learning principles, methods of instruction, student assessment etc were asked. The study was carried out to ascertain the correlation of teacher?s performance in their teaching sessions with the response on multiple choice questions. We administered a test of 50 multiple-choice questions to about 80 newly recruited teachers of different engineering disciplines. This paper discusses the correlation between the two kinds of assessments, namely teachers? understanding of the concepts related to effective teaching and their actual teaching performance.