Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in self-efficacy beliefs and university teacher’s approaches to teaching in pure hard, applied hard, pure soft and applied soft disciplines. A representative sample of 600 university teachers teaching in hard and soft disciplines was drawn from Punjabi University, Patiala on random basis, while giving due weightage to gender. Trigwell’s and Prosser’s Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI-2004) was used to measure approaches to teaching of university teachers. The results of analysis of variance revealed that male university teachers teaching pure hard, applied hard, pure soft and applied soft disciplines differ significantly from their female counterparts in their self-efficacy beliefs. Male university teachers teaching in pure hard and applied hard disciplines have higher self-efficacy beliefs as compared to their female counterparts teaching in pure hard and applied hard disciplines. The results also showed that there were variations in conceptual change/student-focused and information transmission/ teacher- focused approaches to teaching across gender. It was found that male university teachers teaching in soft disciplines make more use of conceptual change/ student-focused approach to teaching than their female counterparts teaching in soft disciplines, while female university teachers teaching in pure hard, applied hard, pure soft and applied soft disciplines make more use of information transmission/ teacher-focused approach to teaching than their male counterparts teaching in pure hard, applied hard, pure soft and applied soft disciplines.

Keywords: Information transmission/ teacher focused approach to teaching (ITTF), Conceptual change/ student focused approach to teaching (CCSF), Pure hard, Applied hard: Pure soft, Applied soft disciplines.

[1] Associate Professor, Vaishno College of Education, Thapkour, Nurpur, Kangra Dist., Himachal Pradesh