Most efforts to improve teaching involve undergraduate or graduate instruction. Other pedagogy, largely ignored in the literature, occurs when psychologists teach and learn at professional conferences. How might this teaching be improved?

Brookfield (1995) argued that faculty do not really understand the outcome and impact of their teaching, nor how to improve it, until they ask students how they perceive their pedagogy. We asked faculty their pet peeves about the nature and quality of the teaching they experienced while attending professional psychology meetings. Their opinions should prove useful for presenters interested in enhancing the quality of their conference "teaching."

Participants

We surveyed attendees at a state (Enhancing the Teaching of Psychology and Human Development Conference, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, WI, n = 29, response rate = 100%), regional (Mid-America Conference for Teachers of Psychology, n= 49, response rate = 63%), and national (NITOP, n = 48, response rate = 12%) teaching conference and colleagues at two doctoral and two master's departments (n = 18). One hundred forty-one responded; 134 contributed usable data. Participants were asked to complete the survey only once.

Procedure

All attendees responded individually during one session at the state teaching conference. At the regional meeting we distributed a brief questionnaire to all participants to be completed and returned before the conference ended. At the national meeting an announcement indicated a questionnaire was available at the registration desk and could be returned there. We also distributed questionnaires to faculty in our department and asked colleagues to do the same in three other departments.

We told potential participants:

We are interested in the quality of teaching that takes place at conferences. What are your pet peeves (major dislikes and annoyances) about conference workshops, symposia and other presentations you have attended over the past few years (e.g., APA, APS, NITOP). Take a few minutes and write down your two or three major pet peeves about such presentations. What bothers you or annoys you the most?

• Respondents provided a mean of 2.0 pet peeves (SD = 0.70, Median and Mode = 2).
• Table 1 organizes 265 responses. The six most frequently listed concerns were:
  • Poor rapport with audience (n = 33, 12%),
  • Illegible visual aids (n = 30, 11%),
  • Presentation too long or starting late (n = 21, 8%),
  • Disorganized presentation (n = 21, 8%),
  • Lack of congruence between titles/abstracts and content presented (n = 19, 7%), and
  • Little or no time for questions/interchange (n = 19, 7%).
  • The largest number of problems lie in preparation and content.

• Balance is important. Attendees complained about both too much and too little material, some audience members monopolizing or too little opportunity to participate, etc.
• Preparation and practice are important. Few presentations exceed 1-hour, with little opportunity to correct deficiencies, a process we call one trial teaching. We recommend conference "teachers" consider that attendees have often traveled long distances to hear them, often choosing not to attend attractive concurrent sessions.
• Less is more. Attendees can read in depth, contact presenters, and continue learning after the conference. They need a clear, concise presentation of the important issues, and expect to obtain this through quality teaching at the forums they attend.

Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Table 1

Audience Pet Peeves About Conference Presentations

Na

%b

a Attendees (n = 134) usually gave more than one peeve per category. Responses represent number of peeves, not attendees.

b Percent = number of responses/total number given.

c Total percentage may not equal sum of item percentages due to rounding.