The Relationship Between Teaching Styles and Autonomous Motivation Among the Faculty Members of Tabriz Universities

The present study aimed to identify teaching styles and determine their correlation with autonomous motivation among the faculty members of two universities in Tabriz, Iran. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 305 faculty members of humanities, basic sciences, engineering, agriculture, and medical sciences departments at Tabriz Universities. The samples were selected through stratified random sampling during the first semester of 2018-19. Research instruments included the Staffordshire Evaluation of Teaching Styles questionnaire, and the Autonomous Motivation for Teaching questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation, MANOVA, and Friedman tests in SPSS v.23. All statistical tests were conducted at a significance level of 0.05. A significant difference was found among faculty members in the "all-round flexible and adaptable", "official formal curriculum", "straight facts, no nonsense", and "big conference" styles (p <0.05), but they were not significantly different in "sensitive student-centered", and "one-off" styles (P>0.05). There were positive correlations between external motivation on the one hand, and all-round flexible and adaptable, official formal curriculum, and one-off styles on the other (p <0.001), and negative correlations between external motivation and straight facts no nonsense style (P=0.001). Positive correlations were also found between internal motivation and student-centered (P=0.001), big conference (P=0.002), and one-off (P=0.003) styles, and between identified motivation and student-centered, straight facts no nonsense, and big conference styles (p <0.001). Besides, internal motivation was negatively correlated with all-round flexible and adaptable (p <0.001), and official formal curriculum (P=0.003) styles, and intrinsic motivation was positively correlated with student-centered (P=0.001) and big conference (p <0.001) styles. Correlations were established between teaching styles and autonomous motivation for teaching, so that productive styles, such as the “sensitive student-centered” teaching style, were mostly correlated with intrinsic motivation, and reproductive styles, such as the “big conference” teaching style, showed correlations with external types of motivation among faculty members.