Te-Sheng Chang

This study investigated Taiwanese student-athletes’ social relationship attitudes toward heterosexual, gay, and lesbian peers in Taiwan. Participants were 192 male and 156 female heterosexual student-athletes from a sports university in Taiwan. The Social Relationship Attitudes toward Heterosexual/Gay/Lesbian Peers scales were used to measure participants’ attitudes toward their peers with different sexual orientations. The results indicate that Taiwanese heterosexual student–athletes’ social relationship attitudes toward peers are dependent on both student gender and the sexual orientation of the target. Male student-athletes’ social relationship attitudes toward gays and lesbians are more negative compared to female student-athletes across personal, societal, and moral domains. Both male and female student-athletes’ social relationship attitudes toward gays are more negative compared to their attitudes toward lesbians in the personal and societal domains. Male student-athletes indicate lower sympathy scores for gays than for lesbians. Females show no difference in their sympathy scores for peers with different sexual orientations.

Classroom interaction experience is one of the main parts of students’ learning lives. However, surprisingly little research has investigated students’ perceptions of classroom interaction with different attendance policies across different class sizes in the higher education system. To elucidate the effects of class size and attendance policy on classroom interaction, we administered a survey to 1304 undergraduates in Taiwan. The questionnaire consisted of six dimensions: classmate supportiveness, classmate pressure, teacher encouragement, teacher supportiveness, study preparedness and class participation. The results indicated that attendance policy and class size have an interaction effect only on the teacher trait. Students in a small class with a never-taking attendance policy feel more supported and encouraged by their teacher compared with those in larger classes with the same attendance policy. When class size is larger, students in classes employing an occasionally taken attendance policy feel more supported from their instructors than those in the never-check attendance policy class. Attendance policy doesn’t influence the student or the classmate trait, but class size does. Larger classes lower classmate supportiveness, student preparedness, and class participation compared with smaller classes.

The purpose of this study was to investigate faculty members’ perceptions of teaching efficacy and their relation to faculty members’ backgrounds. A questionnaire measuring six dimensions of teaching efficacy was distributed to faculty members at 17 universities in Taiwan, yielding 513 complete sets of responses. Faculty members felt efficacious, from the greatest to the least, in the following dimensions: course design, class management, interpersonal relation, learning assessment, technology usage, and instructional strategy. Faculty members of public universities show higher perceptions of their efficacy than do those of private universities. Faculty members in education report a higher level of efficacy than faculty members in other disciplines. Females score higher than males in class management and learning assessment. Faculty members with less than six years of teaching experience indicate lower perceptions of teaching efficacy in course design than other faculty members. Faculty members teaching courses completely matching their specialties feel more confident in their teaching than those teaching partially‐matched courses. However, there is no significant difference between faculty members with teaching training and those without training experience.