GOOD TEACHER CHARACTERISTICS BASED ON STUDENTS’

PERCEPTION

Masruroh
Universitas Islam Lamongan, ismi_masruroh@yahoo.com

Abstract
The Evaluation of learning process is necessary to improve the quality of learning held in
an education unit. One of the learning process’ component that needs attention is
teacher’s effectiveness. Student is considered as the one that appropriate to give an
evaluation about teacher. The result of this student evaluation toward teacher later can
be used by teacher as a reference for better learning process. Through this student
evaluation, students would feel the experience to get involved in the improvement of
learning process and their aspiration being accommodated as this article is aimed to
describe students’ perception toward good teacher characteristics. This research is
descriptive research using survey method with 107 first semester students of Engineering
Faculty in 2016 at Islamic University of Lamongan as respondent. The instrument used in
this research was open questionnaire which students were asked to write down three
characters of good teacher based on their perception. The obtained data was calculated
into percentage to acquire three characters of good teacher with highest percentage. The
results showed that three characteristics of good teacher with the highest percentage are
friendly (16.51%), patient (14.64%), and communicative (11.84%).

Keywords
Good teacher, characteristics, students, perception

Introduction
The Evaluation of learning process is necessary to improve the quality of learning
held in an education unit. One of the learning process’ component that needs
attention is teacher’s effectiveness. Teacher is considered as the most important
element in the achievement of educational objectives (Mehrabian, et.al., 2014).
Teacher has very important role in learning process because he has a role as the
implementer of learning process in a class. Teacher is also considered as the one
who has frequent interaction with students. Thus, the evaluation of teacher’s
effectiveness is expected to motivate teacher in order to be a competent teacher.
This competent teacher later is expected to give positive effect on the process of
learning in order to improve education quality.

Teacher in Indonesia is considered as a competent teacher if he has the

competency regulated by government in the Government Act No. 14 about
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Proceedings 1thInternational Conference on Islamic Civilization and Society– 2017

Teacher and Lecturer. The competencies are pedagogy, personality, social, and
professional. Pedagogy competency is ability to understand students, make a
lesson plan and implement the lesson, carry out learning evaluation, and
motivate students to actualize their potency. Personal competency is considered
as an ability to reflect steady, stable, mature, and wise personality. It also
considered as an authority, an ability to be a good role model for students, and
having good character. Social competency is ability to communicate and interact
effectively with students, school staffs, student’s parents, and general society.
Professional competency is considered as an ability to understand learning
content widely and deeply. Content understanding includes the understanding of
school’s curricula and content knowledge, and also understanding of structure
and methodology of knowledge.

The effectiveness of teacher not only can be detected by compare the

competencies regulated by government mentioned before with the competencies
which the teacher actually has, but also can be measured by measurement
instrument. The most often used measurement is student evaluation (Jahangiri &
Mucciolo, 2008). Kutnick and Jules (1993) stated that the result of student
evaluation depends on the age and character of the student. Based on their
research, they stated that younger students focused on appearance, subjects
taught, and assertion of physical punishment. Mid-aged students focused on the
classroom control used by teacher, actions involved in the teaching process, and
a growing awareness of the individual need of students. Oldest students
understood that good teacher must be well trained and highly motivated, should
be sensitive and responsive to the needs of students, involving students into
learning process, and have a major responsibility in preparing the students for
the world of work and further education. Generally, all ages students perceived
good teacher by physical presentation, teacher’s care for students, descriptive
teaching actions, and trustworthiness.

Despite of some considerable things related to student evaluation, student

evaluation is believed as the best evaluation to measure the effectiveness of
teacher. The reason behind it is the position of the student as the one that has
direct interaction with teacher in learning process (Mehrabian, et.al., 2014). In
addition, Miron & Segal (1978) recognizing the student as the main consumer of
learning instruction. Thus, student is considered as the one that appropriate to
give an evaluation about teacher.

The results of some previous research, such as research conducted by Pachane

(2012) showed that factors that distinguish the best teachers from others are the
importance of pedagogy, good relationship with students, specific content
knowledge, communication abilities and concern with students’ learning.
Research conducted by Lajos, et.al (2014) showed that the students’ indicate
that good teacher is expected to have lower emotional instability, but more
pronounced extroversion, openness to experience, cooperativeness and
consciousness with regard to referent values in general population.

The result of this student evaluation toward teacher later can be used by teacher
as a reference for better learning process. Through this student evaluation,
students would feel the experience to get involved in the improvement of
 Proceedings 1thInternational Conference on Islamic Civilization and Society– 2017

learning process and their aspiration being accommodated as this article is aimed
to describe students’ perception toward good teacher characteristics.

METHOD
This research is descriptive research using survey method. Data was obtained
from 107 first semester students of Engineering Faculty in 2016 at Islamic
University of Lamongan. The instrument used in this research was open
questionnaire which students were asked to write down three characters of good
teacher based on their perception. This questionnaire is used to accommodate
the students’ perception toward good teacher. The obtained data was calculated
into percentage to acquire three characters of good teacher with highest
percentage.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Based on the data obtained from students, there are 30 characteristics of good
teacher based on their perception. The Data can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The percentage (%) of good teacher’s characteristics based on

students perception
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Proceedings 1thInternational Conference on Islamic Civilization and Society– 2017

Based on figure 1, it can be seen that the three characteristics of good teacher
with the highest percentage are friendly (16.51%), patient (14.64%), and
communicative (11.84%). It shows that most of the students have perception
that a good teacher must has friendly, patient, and communicative character.

If it is related to the competencies of good teacher regulated by the government,

the characteristics of good teacher perceived by students represent that
competencies. Friendly is one of the attitude that reflects social competency. The
character of friendly is necessary to be able to communicate effectively with
students, school staffs, student’s parents, and general society. It is appropriate
with the result of research conducted by Pachane (2012) which showed the
factors that distinguish the best teachers from others such as good relationship
with students and communication abilities.

The second character is patient. The character of patient represents personal

competency that reflects steady, stable, mature, and wise personality. It also
considered as an authority, an ability to be a good role model for students, and
having good character. It is appropriate with the result of research conducted by
Lajos, et.al (2014) which showed that the students’ indicate that good teacher is
expected to have lower emotional instability. The character of patient is needed
to deal with the divergence of students’ ability, character, and social background.

The third character is communicative or an ability to communicate effectively.

Teacher is expected to be communicative, in other word he must has the ability
to deliver the information clearly and understandably. Actually, in order to deliver
clear and understandable information, he at least has to understand the
information it self before he deliver it. Thus, this characteristic will be formed
when the teacher has the professional competency where the teacher has been
understood learning content widely and deeply and also understood the structure
and methodology of knowledge. Later on, the characteristic of communicative
will emerge if it is supported by sufficient pedagogy competency where the
teacher has the ability to understand students, make a lesson plan and
implement the lesson, carry out learning evaluation, and motivate students to
actualize their potency. With these mentioned competencies the teacher is
expected to make the information delivered by him can be understood easily by
students in order to facilitate and motivate the students to actualize their
potency. It is appropriate with the result of research conducted by Pachane
(2012) which showed that factors that distinguish the best teachers from others
such as the importance of pedagogy, specific content knowledge, and
communication abilities he has.

Conclusion
Based on the data obtained from 107 students and the discussion above it can be
concluded that the three characteristics of good teacher with the highest
percentage are friendly (16.51%), patient (14.64%), and communicative
(11.84%).
 Proceedings 1thInternational Conference on Islamic Civilization and Society– 2017

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