Consultation outcome as a result of in-service resource teacher training

The effects of learning disabilities teacher training for consultation with classroom teachers were investigated. Twelve learning disabilities resource teachers and 60 elementary school classroom teachers within one school system served as subjects. Four learning disabilities resource teachers received communication skills training, and four resource teachers received conceptual assumptions training. In addition, four resource teachers served as a control group for the study. Each resource teacher conducted three 20- to 30-minute conferences with each of five elementary school teachers. Following the third conference, information was collected concerning: (a) classroom teacher ratings of satisfaction with services, (b) joint ratings of the child's progress toward goals set during the first conferences, (c) the percentage of recommendations implemented, and (d) classroom teacher ratings of joint responsibility, and of resource teacher respect, empathy, and congruence. There were three findings in this study. First, no differences resulting from either type of training were found at posttest for classroom teacher respect, resource teacher congruence, joint responsibility, or joint ratings of the child's progress. Second, training resource teachers in communication skills resulted in significantly higher classroom teacher ratings of resource teacher empathy. Finally, significant differences due to resource teacher experiences prior to this study were noted with classroom teacher ratings of the child's progress, and the number of recommendations implemented.     

Does a teacher’s classroom observation rating vary across multiple classrooms?

Classroom observations have been increasingly used for teacher evaluations, and it is important to examine the measurement quality and the use of observation ratings. When a teacher is observed in multiple classrooms, his or her observation ratings may vary across classrooms. In that case, using ratings from one classroom per teacher may not be adequate to represent a teacher’s instructional quality. Drawing on the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) dataset, this study examined the variation of a teacher’s classroom observation ratings across his or her multiple classrooms. The results indicate that the math classrooms accounted for 4.9 to 14.7% of the variance in the classroom observation ratings and English language arts (ELA) classrooms accounted for 6.7 to 15.5% of the variance in the ratings. The results of this study suggest that teachers’ multiple classrooms should be taken into consideration when classroom observation ratings are used to evaluate teachers in high-stakes settings.     

Classroom disruptions,the teacher–student relationship and classroom management from the perspective of teachers,students and external observers: a multimethod approach

This study used questionnaires and systematic behavioural observations to examine how teachers, students and external observers perceived classroom disruptions, the teacher–student relationship and classroom management in grade 5 and 6 classrooms in Switzerland. The questionnaire showed that the students of a class agreed to a certain extent in their ratings of classroom disruptions, the teacher–student relationship and classroom management. Comparison of teachers’ and students’ ratings showed that agreement on these constructs varied. We found weak to moderate agreement on classroom disruptions, a weak correspondence for the teacher–student relationship, and no association on classroom management. The results of the behavioural observation showed a moderate agreement between external observers’ and students’ ratings, but no association between external observers’ and class teachers’ ratings and only a weak correspondence with the subject teacher ratings. Thus external observers’ low-inference observations corresponded far better with students’ than teachers’ ratings. To sum up, students, teachers and observers perceive classroom processes differently.

     

Classroom Context and Years of Teaching Experience as Predictors of Misalignment on Ratings of Preschoolers’ Classroom Engagement

Research Findings: This study investigated the relationship between features of the classroom environment and misalignment between teacher and observer ratings of preschoolers’ classroom engagement and the extent to which years of teaching experience moderated this relationship. In a sample of 116 preschoolers and 21 teachers in 29 classrooms, classroom engagement was assessed using teacher report and independent direct observation. Classroom-level predictors included severity of challenging behaviors, child:adult ratio, and the percentage of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Lower misalignment was noted on ratings of negative engagement than positive engagement. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that misalignment was largely independent of variation in classroom factors, except for a consistent interaction between years of teaching experience and child:adult ratio. Specifically, observers’ ratings were less misaligned with novice teachers’ ratings than veterans’ in classrooms with a high child:adult ratio, whereas the opposite trend was found in classrooms with low child:adult ratios. Practice or Policy: Findings are discussed in light of current best practice calling for a multidisciplinary approach when conducting assessments on young children, despite little guidance on how to handle misalignment between raters when determining service eligibility and developing effective interventions.     

Students’ perceptions of teacher impact on their self-directed language learning with technology beyond the classroom: cases of Hong Kong and U.S.

Teachers are important social agents who affect students’ cognitive and social behaviors, including students’ self-directed use of technology for language learning outside the classroom. However, how teachers influence student behaviors may vary across cultures, and understanding how teacher influences vary across different cultures is critical to developing culturally adaptive approaches to enhance students’ self-directed use of technology for learning outside the classroom. This study surveyed 418 undergraduate foreign language learners (190 from Hong Kong and 228 from the U.S.) on their intention to use technology for language learning outside the classroom, teacher influence and other psychosocial factors that may affect their technology use intentions. Structural equation modeling analyses of the survey responses indicated that teacher capacity support was consistently the most influential teacher practice affecting students’ self-directed technology use across the two cultures, whereas teacher affective support and teacher behavior support were significant predictors for Hong Kong students but not for U.S. students.     

Behavior Problems and Social Skills in Preschool Children: Parent-Teacher Agreement and Relations with Classroom Observations

The goals of the present investigation were to provide basic psychometric information about the use of the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales (PKBS: Merrill, 1994) with a sample of normally-developing preschool children, to assess agreement between parent and teacher ratings of children on this instrument, and to assess concurrent, criterion-related validity of these instruments in terms of their relations with observations of children's behavior in the classroom. Parents and teachers of 47 preschool children completed the scales and these children were observed naturalistically in the classroom setting. Overall, agreement between parents and teachers was modest (-.09 to .38). Cross-informant correlations were poor (-.09 to .27) for social skills, low (.15 to .36) for internalizing behaviors, and modest (.29 to .38) for externalizing behavior. Both parents and teachers rated boys as having more externalizing behavior problems than girls. Parents perceived their children to have more externalizing, and more overall, behavior problems than did teachers. In general, teacher reports, but not parent reports, were significantly associated with children's independently observed goal-directed activity, sustained attention, inappropriate behavior, peer affiliation, expressed negative affect, and proximity to a teacher in the classroom. Results argue for the clinical utility of the PKBS for teacher-report assessment of child behavior problems and social skills in the preschool years, and suggest the need for cross-contextual assessment. Also, it is clear that children's behavioral and social competence are crucial for optimal functioning in the preschool setting.     

An ecological analysis of cognitions of behavioral deviancy

The purpose of this study was to determine whether educators' judgments of problem behaviors are influenced by classroom context (disruptive × nondisruptive) and teacher type (regular × special). After viewing each of five randomly sequenced videotaped behavioral segments presented within a disruptive or nondisruptive classroom setting, teachers rated behavioral severity, tolerance, manageability, and contagion. A two-way multivariate analysis of variance produced significant main effects for both context and teacher type, with ratings more negative for the disruptive class and for regular teachers. Implications for special educational services and ecological research are discussed.     

Instructional practices of teachers enrolled in educational technology and general education programs

This study investigated classroom practices of 38 teachers enrolled in university masters' degree programs in educational technology and in other areas of education. The classroom practices related to five key concepts associated with educational technology: (a) learner-centered instruction, (b) instructional design, (c) media and technology, (d) assessment, and (e) instructional alignment. Teachers rated their frequency of use of desirable practices in these five areas on a 30-item Likert type survey. In addition, one class of students per teacher rated its own teacher's frequency of use of the practices on 20 items parallel to items on the teacher survey. The mean overall rating across all teachers for the classroom practice items was very close to Often, or 4.0, on the 5-point scale. There were few reported differences between the teachers enrolled in educational technology programs and those enrolled in other education programs. Student ratings indicated less frequent teacher use of the desirable practices on 16 of the 20 common items, with significantly lower student ratings on 8 of these items. However, there was strong teacher-student agreement on several other comparisons.The study reported in this article was conducted as a doctoral dissertation at Arizona State University.     

Relationships Between Teachers and Preschoolers Who Are At Risk: Contribution of Children's Language Skills,Temperamentally Based Attributes,and Gender

Research Findings: The teacher–child relationship can provide an important support to young children who exhibit developmental risk. This research studied the contribution of children's language skills, temperamentally based attributes (shyness, anger), and gender to closeness and conflict in the teacher–child relationship for 133 preschoolers attending programs serving at-risk children. The results showed that both language comprehension (positive predictor) and shyness (negative predictor) were significantly linked to closeness in the teacher–child relationship. An additional result was that children who displayed greater anger within the classroom had relationships with their teachers characterized by higher levels of conflict, and both gender and language expression served as moderators for the relationship between anger and teacher–child conflict. Practice or Policy: These findings are important for considering how various skills and attributes of preschool children may contribute to their formation of trusting and secure relationships with their classroom teachers.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of Teacher–Child Relationships: Links With Children’s Observed Interactions

Research Findings: The present study examined associations between children’s classroom interactions and teachers’ perceptions of teacher–child relationships during 1 year of preschool. Teachers (n = 223) reported their perceptions of closeness and conflict in their teacher–child relationships in the fall and spring. Children’s (n = 895) positive classroom interactions with teachers, peers, and learning activities and their negative interactions were observed midyear. Children’s positive interactions with teachers and learning activities predicted teachers’ perceptions of more closeness in the spring when we accounted for fall closeness. Children’s negative interactions predicted teachers’ perceptions of more relational conflict in the spring when we accounted for fall conflict. Children’s positive peer interactions did not predict spring closeness or conflict. Implications regarding teachers’ perceptions of teacher–child relationships and children’s independently observed classroom interactions are discussed. Practice or Policy: Findings provide empirical evidence for an aspect of Pianta, Hamre, and Stuhlman’s (2003) conceptual model of teacher–child relationships. Results indicate that children’s classroom interactions may be a factor related to how teachers report on their relationships with children across 1 year of preschool. Findings point to links between a range of children’s positive and negative interactions during typical instruction and teachers’ relationship perceptions.     

Perceived seriousness of pupils' undesirable behaviours: the student teachers' perspective

The effective management of pupils' undesirable behaviours in the classroom represents a major challenge for teachers. In order to better comprehend the difficulties facing them it is important to examine how they perceive pupil behaviours at different stages of their professional development. The present study examined the effects of teaching experience and pupil and teacher gender on student teachers' perceptions of the seriousness of various forms of undesirable behaviours. A structured questionnaire was completed by 243 student teachers, regarding the perceived seriousness of 25 behaviours in boys and girls. Results indicated that both teaching experience and pupil gender were important moderators of their perceptions. For instance, novice student teachers rated overtly antisocial behaviours as serious, whereas their experienced counterparts gave higher ratings of seriousness to internalising forms of behaviour. A degree of gender stereotyping was also apparent in the perceptions of mainly novice teachers. The accumulation of teaching experience may help direct teacher attention to more subtle aspects of pupil behaviour difficulties and may reduce gender stereotyping.     

Teacher Education Programmes and Their Contribution to Student Teacher Efficacy in Classroom Management and Pupil Engagement

This study focuses on how different educational programmes contribute to student teachers efficacy for classroom management and their abilities to provide learning opportunities and good classroom outcomes. Data were gathered from 491 student teachers attending different teacher education programmes in Norway and analysed via structural equation modelling. The results revealed the following: (1) problem behaviour in the classroom has a negative effect on student teacher efficacy, (2) students' perceptions of the integration of pedagogic knowledge and practice supports students' efficacy beliefs, (3) support from supervisors contributes positively to student teachers' efficacy beliefs, and (4) student teachers in university college programmes for primary school teaching report higher teacher efficacy than students in university programmes for secondary school teaching.     

Teachers’ Ability to Identify Children at Early Risk for Reading Difficulties in Grade 1

The aim of the study was to investigate what kinds of assessment practices classroom teachers and special educational needs (SEN) teachers use in assessing first grade students' pre-reading skills (letter knowledge and phonological skills). Further, we investigated to what extent teachers were able to identify difficulties in pre-reading skills of the children with the lowest achievement scores. The accuracy of teacher ratings of students' pre-reading skills was studied by comparing teacher ratings to actual test scores. The data from two Finnish longitudinal studies were used: JLD sample (class teachers, n = 91; SEN teachers, n = 51; 200 students) and First Steps sample (class teachers, n = 136; SEN teachers, n = 34; 598 students). Results showed first, that most classroom teachers used qualitative assessment and SEN teachers also relied on tests. Secondly, although teacher ratings correlated with the test scores, closer investigation of sensitivity and specificity of the teacher ratings revealed that a number of children in need of extra support for their early reading development according to test scores remained unidentified. Moreover, there were some students identified by the teacher to have difficulties despite test scores not confirming that. The findings underline the importance for developing more specific and reliable assessment tools for teachers to use for pedagogical purposes, and respectively, the need to pay more attention to early identification of reading difficulties in teacher training program curricula.     

One lesson is all you need? Stability of instructional quality across lessons

Observer ratings are often used to measure instructional quality. They are, however, usually based on observations gathered over short periods of time. Few studies have attempted to determine whether these periods are sufficient to provide reliable measures of instructional quality. Using generalizability theory, this study investigates (a) how three dimensions of instructional quality – classroom management, personal learning support, and cognitive activation of students – vary between the lessons of a specific teacher, and (b) how many lessons per teacher are necessary to establish sufficiently reliable measures of these dimensions. Analyses are based on ratings of five lessons for 38 teachers. Classroom management and personal learning support were stable across lessons, whereas cognitive activation showed high variability. Consequently, one lesson per teacher suffices to measure classroom management and personal learning support, whereas nine lessons would be needed for cognitive activation. The importance of advancing our theoretical understanding of cognitive activation is discussed.     

教师课堂教学行为与学生课堂参与的关系——基于问卷调查的心理学实证研究

本研究通过对411名高中生进行了团体问卷调查,探讨了各类教师课堂教学行为对学生课堂参与行为的影响。结果发现：①教师的积极教学行为对学生课堂参与有显著的预测作用,其中教学技能、支持帮助维度预测力最大;②教师教学行为对不同学习效能感水平学生的课堂参与作用不同。低效能感学生的课堂参与受教师的消极教学行为尤其是不公平行为的负性影响更多,受教师积极教学行为的积极影响较少。     

Effects of teacher feedback behavior on social acceptance in inclusive elementary classrooms: Exploring social referencing processes in a natural setting

Teacher feedback behavior is a key determinant of the social referencing processes that influence the social acceptance of pupils. The present longitudinal study explores how teacher feedback on academic performance and social behavior is related to social acceptance during classroom activities and recess in the natural setting of inclusive classrooms. Data come from a study with 32 teachers and their 546 first to third grade pupils in Switzerland. Teacher feedback behavior was videotaped and peer nominations and ratings were used to assess social acceptance. Multilevel regression analyses showed that feedback on incorrect social behavior was negatively correlated with feedback on correct academic performance. Teacher feedback on incorrect social behavior and on correct and incorrect academic performance predicted how pupils were accepted by their peers during classroom activities. However, teacher feedback did not affect social acceptance during recess. The effect of teacher feedback behavior on social acceptance appears to depend on context. Social acceptance during classroom activities is influenced by teacher feedback whereas social acceptance at recess is not.     

Proposing an Operational Definition of Science Teacher Beliefs

Much research has shown that a science teacher’s beliefs are related to their teaching practice. This line of research has often defined “belief” epistemologically. That is, beliefs are often defined relative to other mental constructs, such as knowledge, dispositions, or attitudes. Left unspecified is the role beliefs play in cognition and how they come to influence science teachers’ classroom practice. As such, researchers and science teacher educators have relied on an (at times, implicit) assumption that there is a direct causal relationship between teachers’ beliefs and classroom practice. In this paper, we propose an operational, as opposed to epistemological, definition of belief. That is, we are explicit about the role a belief plays in science teachers’ cognition and how that leads to classroom practice. We define a belief as a mental representation that influences the practice of a teacher if and only if the belief is active in cognition. We then turn our attention to two limitations in the literature on that have arisen via previous definitions and assumptions regarding science teacher beliefs, showing how defining beliefs operationally helps think about these issues in new ways. The two limitations surround: (1) the difficulty in precisely delineating belief from knowledge; and (2) the interconnectedness of beliefs such that they draw meaning from one another. We then show how our definition of beliefs is congruent with other models of teacher cognition reported in the literature. Finally, we provide implications arising from this definition of belief for both science teacher educators and those who conduct research on the beliefs of both preservice and in-service science teachers.     

Question Asking in the Science Classroom: Teacher Attitudes and Practices

Despite the wide agreement among educators that classroom learning and teaching processes can gain much from student and teacher questions, their potential is not fully utilized. Adopting the view that reporting both teachers’ (of varying age groups) views and actual classroom practices is necessary for obtaining a more complete view of the phenomena at hand, the present study closely examines both cognitive and affective domains of: (a) teachers’ views (via interviews) concerning: (1) importance and roles of teacher and student questions, (2) teacher responses, and (3) planning and teacher training; and (b) teachers’ actual practices (via classroom observations) concerning: (1) number and (2) level of teacher and student questions, as well as (3) teachers’ responses to questions. The data were collected from 3 elementary, 3 middle, and 3 high school science teachers and their respective classroom students. The findings lay out a wide view of classroom questioning and teachers’ responses, and relate what actually occurs in classes to teachers’ stated views. Some of the study’s main conclusions are that a gap exists between how science researchers and teachers view the role of teacher questions: the former highlight the cognitive domain, while the latter emphasize the affective domain.     

Geography students as constructors of classroom knowledge and practice: a case study from Botswana

This study reports on the strategies (overt and subtle) employed by students in one senior secondary school in Botswana to keep their teachers in an information‐giving position. Contrary to the prevailing view that the ‘teacher dominance’ of classroom activities so often reported in classroom studies results from teachers' desire for social control, this study sees the dominance as a negotiated product, resulting instead from teachers and students exercising power on one another. Such a view of classroom practice is only possible where power is conceptualized not as a negative force that dominates, but as a productive force that simultaneously constrains and enables human action. Viewed this way, classroom reality becomes a co‐construction, a ‘joint project’ by teacher and students. Attempts to change this reality, therefore, must include both teacher and students.     

How teachers can improve their classroom interaction with students: New findings from teachers themselves

Teachers are the most important agents in shaping education for students and to bring change and innovation in educational practices. There is a lack of knowledge about how teachers learn and transfer their knowledge into practice in the classrooms. Teacher educators have repeatedly argued that classroom management is a critical pedagogical skill that teachers must master in order to maximize classroom interaction. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of how lower secondary school teachers learn and improve classroom interaction in the context of an educational intervention. Three aspects of classroom interaction are addressed: emotional support, classroom organization and instructional support. The sample contained 81 teachers from 14 Norwegian lower secondary schools reporting, through digital logs, on learning experiences with respect to classroom interaction. Moreover, they reported on the types of learning activities they undertook. Findings indicated that teachers’ improvement in classroom interaction was, to a large extent, dependent on their own, or their colleagues’ strong knowledge of classroom interaction. The results of the study add to our understanding of teachers’ knowledge and skills within classroom interaction and how teachers can improve their knowledge, e.g., through reflection on situations in the classroom. Still, the authors suggest a stronger emphasis on the integration of research based knowledge and teacher learning strategies to support teachers to reach their full teaching potential.