A Study on the Characteristics of Good Instruction Perceived by Prospective Professors through Topic Modeling

The study aims to identify the core keywords of ‘good instruction’ as perceived by prospective professors and to explore the the characteristics of ‘good instruction’. A total of 142 teaching philosophy essays were collected from the prospective professors and analyzed using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling method, resulting in the identification of five main topics. First, the core keywords frequently appearing in good instruction included ‘people’, ‘questions’, and ‘preparation’. Second, the characteristics of good instruction were categorized into five topics: encouraging learner participation through diverse methods, promoting academic achievement through continuous monitoring of learning, supporting the development of expertise in the major field, providing a safe learning environment based on mutual trust, and fostering active communication and interaction. This study is significant as it provides a framework and direction for what constitutes good instruction in higher education based on the teaching philosophies of prospective professors. It also offers practical implications for design and implementation of good instruction.