When teachers give students just a few seconds more to think about and formulate their answers to questions, there are pronounced improvements in the quality of the response and in students' and teachers' attitudes and expectations. (Author)

A model constructed by combining nine theories relating wait-time, teacher expectations, equity and fate control to inquiry behaviors is described. Results indicate implusive students can be converted to reflective pupils by providing them with time to think and by allowing alternative answers. (BR)

Discusses the incompatibility of fast-paced questioning techniques and inquiry-oriented science instruction. Encourages increasing the time allowed for students to construct responses to teacher questions, and utilizing a system of rewards and punishments that supports students working out their own ideas with experiments. (DDR)

Presents some considerations about the variable of "wait time," a pause after a teacher question so that students can think or a pause after a student statement. (PEB)

Elementary science teachers allow an average of one second for a response to a question, and follow a student response by a comment within an average of nine-tenths of a second. When these two "wait times" are extended to three to five seconds, a number of changes occur in student variables. There are increases in the length of the…

This study investigates "wait times" in elementary science classes-the pauses between a teacher's question and a student's answer and between a student's answer and a teacher's response. Among the findings were indications that longer "wait times" promote increased student participation in problem solving, decision making, the structuring of the…

Presents findings from research studies which suggest that changes in teaching procedures can increase survival rates in chemistry. Using 2-minute pauses in lecture and 3-second wait times in discussions, learning chemistry in context of major from which student comes, and computer applications are recommended. (JN)

Part One of this paper summarizes six years of investigations devoted to the study of the influence that a variable called teacher "wait-time" has on development of language and logic in children taking part in elementary science programs. It discusses the relation of wait-time to 10 outcome variables. Wait time at two locations was studied in…