Skill Acquisition and Reflection-based Decision Making in a Teaching Laboratory: an evaluative study

This paper continues the tradition of research, development and evaluation of teaching laboratories, and, at the same time, extends earlier research in two directions: by placing more emphasis on the improvement of a reflection-based decision-making ability in becoming a teacher (beyond effective skill acquisition), and by concentrating on the improvement of presentation skills, an area neglected in teacher training. Based on research on teaching and teacher training, a training program was developed for enhancing the trainees' nonverbal expressiveness in presentations that, by fostering reflection-based decision making through experimenting with presentation skills in a laboratory with feedback and discussions, also improves the clarity, interest and social climate of presentations. The evaluation of the most recent Version of this program reveals that significant gains could be achieved not only in nonverbal expressiveness as an indicator for successful skill acquisition, but also in the global aspects of successful lecturing indicating that the program was also effective for the improvement of the trainees' reflection-based decision making.