The Effects of Student-Faculty Interaction and Teaching Practices on Student Learning

Providing a good quality of learning is one of the Tri Dharma Perguruan Tinggi’s objectives in the context of Indonesian higher education. Institutions of higher education in Indonesia have attempted many ways to improve the quality of student learning. While many attempts are based on external review assessments such as Badan Akreditasi Nasional Perguruan Tinggi or International Standard Organization, few are based on the students’ self-reported data. In fact, students’ opinion on the learning process is essential because they are the ones who experience the learning process. This study, therefore, is aimed at assessing students’ learning experience based on students’ self-reported data. Specifically, this study focuses on examining how student-faculty interaction and teaching practices delivered by instructors affect students’ reflective-integrative learning. Generally speaking, reflective-integrative learning refers to an approach of learning in which students do not merely memorize facts/information but also assess those facts/information to be reflected upon their experiences to build a larger construct of understanding. Prior studies indicate that there are factors that could moderate students’ reflective-integrative learning. This study is interested in examining two factors that might affect students’ reflective-integrative learning, student-faculty interaction and teaching practices. Student-faculty interaction refers to student’s efforts to communicate with faculty members in areas such as academic work, non-academic work, and career while teaching practices refer to instructor’s efforts to deliver a course so that students could gain a better understanding of the course. This study uses data from the 2015 administration of the Indonesian Survey of Student Learning Activities (ISSLA) – ISSLA data is used with a permission from Program Magister Manajemen Pendidikan Tinggi Universitas Gadjah Mada. ISSLA is a newly adapted instrument from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) in the U.S. Similar to NSSE, in nature, ISSLA measures students’ experiences during their undergraduate education. While there are ten measures in ISSLA, this study only uses Reflective-Integrative Learning (RI), Student-Faculty Interaction (SF), and Effective-Teaching (ET) – the complete items and scale of the measures will be included in the presentation. Analytically, this study employs structural equation modeling to estimate the effects of SF and ET on RI. The result from the analysis suggests a good fit between the data and the model used in this study. The chi-square statistic is 873.60 (df = 101, n = 1773, p < .001) and the fit indices are CFI = .92, TLI = .91, and RMSEA = .07. Also, the analysis shows both SF and ET significantly affect RI (p < .05). While every one unit increase in SF would expectedly increase .31 unit in RI, every one unit increase in ET would expectedly increase .20 unit in RI. The finding from this study implies that Indonesian institutions of higher education should seriously pay attention to the interaction between faculty members and students as well as teaching practices if they would like to improve the quality of student learning. This principle could evolve in several ways such as scheduling a routine meeting between faculty members and students, using forum kegiatan mahasiswa as a learning community guided by faculty members, and providing continuous training for faculty members about effective-teaching practices.