2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper examines the responses of engineering and non-engineering students to the Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) in a graduate-level interdisciplinary teacher training program. While preparing graduate students to be effective educators is a key aspect of their training, many programs lack discipline-specific pedagogical instruction and instead rely on broader resources, such as a university’s Center for Teaching and Learning. These interdisciplinary environments raise critical questions: Do students' teaching perspectives vary across disciplines, and can a general training program support their development as educators? By exploring the teaching perspectives students bring to such programs, we can assess the degree to which disciplinary background shapes their approach to teaching and determine whether a generalized program can still align with their values and experiences.

Data were collected from 67 students in a graduate-level capstone teaching course provided through the Center for Teaching and Learning at a large, public, research-intensive institution in the southeastern United States. Of these students, 36 were in the College of Engineering, while 31 were from other disciplines. Students participated in a semester-long mentored teaching experience and completed the TPI around Week 3 of the semester. They were asked to write a reflection on their scores and develop teaching philosophy statements based on their beliefs about effective teaching.

The TPI measures five key teaching perspectives—Transmission, Apprenticeship, Developmental, Nurturing, and Social Reform—by assessing beliefs, intentions, and actions through a 45-item survey using Likert-style responses. The inventory provides insights into which teaching perspectives prevail and whether students exhibit tension between their abstract beliefs and the realities of teaching. The instrument has a robust history of validity evidence with multiple populations including graduate and undergraduate students. In this study, students’ TPI scores were analyzed based on their enrolled program (engineering vs. non-engineering), teaching experience (Instructor of Record vs. guest lecturer), and gender presentation (as indicated by preferred pronouns).

Despite individual variability in TPI responses, no statistically significant differences were found between engineering and non-engineering students in terms of their dominant or recessive perspectives, as well as their perspective-specific beliefs, intentions, or actions. These results suggest that interdisciplinary, centralized teaching training programs, even when not discipline-specific, can be a valuable experience for graduate students. The study highlights the TPI’s potential as a useful tool in teaching development and underscores the broader applicability of general pedagogical training across fields.