2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Teaching Assistants (TAs) are a critical part of many engineering programs, particularly at larger institutions. However, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of how TAs can effectively support students, particularly in comparison to the extensive knowledge available on how faculty can do so. This paper reduces this gap by not only identifying what engineering undergraduates want from TAs but by exploring how these preferences for TA support vary across gender, race/ethnicity, country of origin, and time. Understanding these demographic differences as well as if and how they vary over time can assist TAs in their efforts to equitably serve a diverse student population. Qualitative research methods were applied to over 1,600 student responses and over 1,800 student preferences for TA support across three major time periods: (a) traditional classroom teaching prior to the COVID-19 pandemic; (b) emergency remote learning (ERT) during the peak of the pandemic; and (c) subsequent return to in-person teaching post-pandemic. Thematic analyses of student responses revealed three primary themes in the data: best teaching practices, teacher preparation, and hospitality. Secondary themes within these primary themes were also identified. Within teaching practice, the most common secondary themes included TA-student contact and TA-student feedback. Within teacher preparation, diverse, well-prepared examples and knowledgeable review of course concepts were popular among student respondents. The analysis of both primary and secondary themes indicated that different demographic groups have different preferences for TA support which evolve over time and that such preferences are not uniform across student demographics. This dynamic landscape of what students expect from their TAs suggests that techniques for exploring student expectations at the start of a course can make a valuable addition to TA professional development programs. Understanding this dynamic landscape can also enable TAs to target their teaching efforts for maximum and equitable effectiveness across both underrepresented and majority student populations.