Training Needs and Job Duties of UCF Graduate Teaching Assistants

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Training Needs and Job Duties of UCF Graduate
Teaching Assistants

• Barbara Fritzsche, Eric Main, John Weishampel
  Kevin Yee
• With special thanks to Bernadette Jungblut and
  Jean Kijek
• Basic Project Description
• GTAs who are teaching or are planning to teach
  at UCF require training to ensure a high quality
  of instructional expertise. The FCTL has
  developed a program to support GTAs, providing
  them with teaching effectiveness strategies,
  theory, and practice. We surveyed Spring, 2005
  GTAs to understand graduate student perspectives
  on GTA training and their job responsibilities.
  The results of this survey are expected to be
  used by the FCTL, Graduate Studies, and
  individual programs to assist future GTAs in the
  development of the necessary knowledge, skills,
  and abilities to perform successfully in the GTA
  role.

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Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of the
Survey Respondents (N 92)

• Ninety-two (of 183) GTAs completed the survey.
  The mean age of respondents was 26.4 years (SD
  5.1), and 65 were female. Respondents were from
  24 different majors, with the greatest
  representation from Computer Science (n 22),
  Biological Sciences (n 9), and Psychology (n
  9). Additional demographic characteristics of
  the respondents are presented in Table 1.

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Often Occasionally Never
WHAT GTAs DO
VeryUseful Useful SomewhatUseful Not Usefu
l