The Relationship Between Faculty Members' Teaching Styles with Students' Academic Enthusiasm and Academic Performance

In activities to increase the quality of education, paying attention to teaching and learning styles has been identified as an important variable. One of the most important reasons is that learners' learning is a reflection of the experiences they face in the classroom, which often include principles such as reflection, development of skills and attitudes needed to solve problems and collaborate with other learners to achieve better learning.
One of the teaching styles proposed by Grasha and Richman (1996). It defined as the beliefs, behaviors, and needs of teachers that emerge in an educational context. Grasha and Richman stated that teaching style reflects the personal qualities of the teacher in terms of how to teach, guide, and direct the teaching process, thus impacting learners and their ability to learn. Grasha and Richman's teaching style consists of 5 styles including: (1) Expert teaching style: The expert teaching style makes teachers maintain their status as experts among their learners by displaying accurate and comprehensive knowledge. (2) Formal authority teaching style: it requires teachers to have status among learners. (3) Personal model teaching style: personal model teaching style refers to teachers who teach based on their own example and experiences. They will directly encourage and guide learners to emulate it. (4) Facilitator teaching style: This style emphasizes teacher and learner interaction. Therefore, teachers with this teaching style act as facilitators in the classroom. They guide learners by exploring options, asking questions, suggesting alternatives, and encouraging learners to make informed decisions. (5) Delegator teaching style: it refers to teachers who emphasize the development of a learner’s self-capacity. So, teachers will act as a source of reference and learners will be encouraged to conduct self-learning such as projects. 
Researches show that teaching style has a positive and significant relationship with academic enthusiasm and academic performance. Academic enthusiasm has three dimensions, such as: (a) cognitive (including various cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by learners to learn), (b) emotional (including the components of feeling, value and motivation to educational environment and interest in university work) and (c) behavioral (including behaviors, efforts, and asking for help by learners in dealing with homework or active presence with enthusiasm in the university environment), each of which affects academic performance.
Another variable that is influenced by teaching styles is learners' academic performance. Academic enthusiasm is one of the important factors in the academic progress of learners, which is an important predictor for their academic performance.
The aim of this study was investigating the relationship between the teaching styles of academic staff members with learners' academic enthusiasm and academic performance. The research method of this applied study was quantitative and descriptive-correlation. The statistical population of the study were male and female learners of public universities in Tehran, in which 238 learners were selected by simple random sampling methods. The main tool for data collection was the Grasha and Richman (1996) teaching style questionnaire and the Fredricks, Blumenfeld & Paris (2004) academic enthusiasm questionnaire. The scale was designed as a five-point Likert scale. The Teaching Styles Questionnaire measures five teaching styles such as Personal model teaching style, expert teaching style, formal authority teaching style, delegator teaching style, and facilitator teaching style. To complete the questionnaires, while providing explanations to the research sample, they were asked to participate in the research by reading the questions of the questionnaires carefully and answering them. Explanations were given to the respondents regarding the confidentiality of the information, which is one of the points of research ethics. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to determine the validity of the questionnaire. The data were analyzed with SPSS software. In order to analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics have been used: (a) Descriptive statistics: This method was used to categorize and describe the characteristics of the sample, frequency, percentage, and standard deviation. (b) Inferential statistics: This method was used to express the relationship between variables.
The results showed that the average perception of teaching styles and its components was higher than the mean score. The finding indicated that faculty members successfully have used all styles in their teaching. The results of previous studies showed that learners learned in different styles and a style should be chosen that fits the learning style of the majority of the learners.
The findings indicated that the mean of academic enthusiasm of the learners was higher than the assumed mean of the statistical population. According to the results regarding academic enthusiasm, the score of behavioral and emotional enthusiasm of female learners was higher than the score of male learners. The results of the findings showed that there was positive and significant relationship between the teaching styles of faculty members and the academic enthusiasm of learners. Also, there was positive and significant relationship between the teaching styles of faculty members and the academic performance of learners. In explaining the findings, it can be said that higher academic enthusiasm of learners leads to more attention and focus on learning. They were more committed to the rules and principles of the classroom and the educational environment and perform better in tests from engaging in undesirable behaviors in the educational environment. Faculty members can make learners the focus of their teaching to improve their academic performance. Because learner-centered education increases learners' academic performance, learner-centered classrooms promote complex thinking and meet learners' learning goals. Based on the findings, it is suggested that faculty members, by focusing on new teaching styles that affect learners' enthusiasm and academic performance, move away from focusing on the traditional lecture style and increase the effective learning by involving learners. Faculty members by using the appropriate teaching style will increase academic enthusiasm and learners' class participation and the level of academic performance of learners.