Comparison of confidence among graduate teaching assistants before and after training

Abstract Background: Teaching assistants (TAs) play an important role in pedagogical practices, and teaching assistant (TA) training has become a critical measure to promote teaching quality and interaction. TAs’ confidence might significantly increase the performance of TAs’ work. However, little evidence paid attention to the TAs’ confidence changes after TA training. Methods: A self-control quasi-experiment was conducted to explore the TAs’ confidence changes before and after TA training. A qualified questionnaire was used to investigate the confidence of the graduate teaching assistants before and after the TA training. Results: A total of 372 TAs from school of basic medicine (N=173), school of pharmacy (N=112), school of public Health (N=69) and other schools (N=18) submitted complete questionnaires. They had a median total confidence score of 88 and 85 before and after the TA training. The total TA confidence score decreased after TA training (P<0.001). For imparting new knowledge accurately to students, those who were disinterested in becoming a college teacher were associated with an increased confidence compared with neutral TAs (β:6.89, 95%CI: 0.94,12.83). Conclusion: TA confidence decreased after TA training. Therefore, in addition to teaching skills training, it is necessary to establish and strengthen TAs’ confidence when designing TA training programs.