The first generations of researchers on classroom instruction were the pioneers who developed the term, categories, and concepts that were used to view and code what was happening during classroom lessons. The five pioneers in this first wave were Ned Flanders, Arno Bellack, B.O. Smith, Don Medley, and Harold Mitzel. Each of these pioneers used…

The correlation between high-inference measures and low-inference observation measures was studied using two groups of social studies student teachers (25 students per group). The high-inference measure for two video-taped lessons was obtained with the 10-item Teacher Performance Appraisal Scale (TPAS), on which pupils rated the lesson on a scale…

Discusses the number of observations necessary to obtain a trustworthy sample of classroom transactions by reanalyzing existing data. Eleven to twenty observations appear necessary for teachers' questions which require students to hypothesize. The reliability of a single observation was zero for four other questioning types. (CC)