Behavioural transitions in team teaching

Comparing low and high experience teachers via Transition Network Analysis

Abstract

As team teaching becomes increasingly common in higher education, understanding how teams of teachers coordinate their behaviours in the classroom is critical for effective instruction and instructional design. While prior research has examined teaching behaviours through classroom observations, much of this work has tended to treat behaviours as isolated categories. This is, focusing on what occurs rather than how behaviours transition over time. Moreover, whether teachers with different levels of teaching experience exhibit distinct behavioural transitions in team teaching remains underexplored. This study addresses this gap by investigating how teaching behavioural transitions differ between high and low experience teachers working as a team in the classroom. Drawing on human-coded observations from 36 team-taught university sessions, and analysed using Transition Network Analysis (TNA), we visualised and compared patterns of behavioural transitions. The results revealed significant differences in behavioural transitions between teachers of varying experience levels. High experience teachers were more likely to transition directly from lecturing into interactions with students, and subsequently into real-time instructional adjustments, demonstrating instructional responsiveness and adaptability. In contrast, low experience teachers demonstrated a stronger reliance on peer coordination. This finding highlights the role of teaching experience in shaping team teaching dynamics and offers implications for teacher pairing and professional development.