Identifying the 55 behaviours of transformational educators by evidence-synthesis and Delphi study with UK higher education experts

Transformational education, defined as ‘that which promotes the development of learners through a dynamic interplay between knowledge, learners and educators’ (Slavich & Zimbardo, 2012, p1) is a major goal of higher education. Of crucial importance to the interplay is what educators do in their face-to-face teaching to support transformation. However, although there is literature available that discusses transformation and the educator’s role, we argue that there is not a distinct list of behaviours. Behaviours are important as they are observable and are therefore useful for both the development and assessment of educators. Here we describe a study in which we extracted the educator behaviours associated with transformational education. Firstly, we conducted a systematic review and meta-synthesis of literature about transformational education. We found 105 papers containing 159 behaviours. Secondly, we conducted a Delphi study with 40 expert practitioners in UK higher education who reached consensus on 55 behaviours that were core to transformational educators. We suggest that these core behaviours can be used to create educational interventions for educators and also as a behavioural checklist for self and peer assessment of educator performance.