Crossing perspectives on teaching practices in lectures: analysis, validation, and comparison of three measurement instruments

Abstract

This article sheds new light on the teaching practices of university lecturers. To do so, a sample of 1,250 students and 39 lecturers was collected at a French university. The data were analyzed to estimate the validity and reliability of three measures of teaching practices (observed, self-reported and perceived) and to investigate the differences in the way practices are described, depending on the measure used. The results showed that the instruments used to distinguish the three dimensions of teaching practices were highly reliable. Intra-subject and multi-level analyses also showed significant differences on teaching practices scores from one measure to another. The discussion section comes back on the complementary of multiple perspectives of teaching practices and the limitations of each specific instrument.