This overview describes a system for measuring instructional and management parameters of teaching through a method of classroom observation in which live observers and video tapes record teacher and learner behavior (both verbal and nonverbal) and the social-political-physical characteristics of the setting. Presentation is in 3 sections: (1) the…

New trends in language teaching have resulted in a move towards research in the language classroom. A brief overview of classroom research reveals three distinct but inter-related research paradigms: classroom-centered research, classroom process research, and qualitative research, respectively.

The evolution of educational evaluation has been significantly influenced by the assumptions and procedures of educational research which, in turn, aspires to make educational practice scientific. The concept of education connoisseurship and education criticism is posited upon a different set of techniques. Connoisseurship is an appreciative art…

The Stanford Research International (SRI) classroom observation system provides a description of the classroom environment with emphasis on interactions between teachers and students and among students. Included in the SRI observation system is the Five Minute Observation (FMO), which records classroom interactions into "frames"…

Underlying the current use of ethnography in the study of teaching and learning is the assumption of an analogy between the school or classroom and culture. The claim of educational ethnography is that it discovers and describes the ways that members of the school community create and share meaning. Ethnographers aim to discover the operating…

This paper discusses several interrelated features of microethnography that are relevant and useful for the study of bilingual schooling. It is argued that an interactional approach provides a powerful way to study systematically the organization of bilingual learning environment, identify areas of difficulty, and suggest concrete interventions…

Problems in the analysis of sequential behavior are discussed in relation to observation-coding procedures. A set of heuristic constructs are presented toward the development of a solution strategy for the analysis of chains of interactive behaviors. A proposed analytic computer program is briefly outlined and discussed. (Author)

Experimental and supplementary observational studies of how children help one another learn are reported. In the experiment, developmental patterns in children's discourse in two common peer-learning situations were investigated. Sixty-four pairs of children, drawn equally from kindergarten and second grade, participated in the study. Dyads,…

"A Study of Schooling" is an in-depth descriptive study of 38 purposively sampled schools in the United States. Many aspects of the educational process were examined, from student attitudes to principal leadership styles. Essential to this comprehensive view of education is a view of within classroom processes, including teacher student…

An overview is presented of classroom observation instruments which have been created and refined since 1962. The components of teacher-pupil transactions measured by different observation methods are listed, and the complexities and difficulties encountered when using the instruments are discussed. A description is given of the Coping Analysis…

This study examined the applicability of Watts' Human Interaction Scale to day care settings, and was also concerned at a more general level with the question of whether it is possible for day care settings to approximate good homes. Six 2-year-olds in each of two day care centers were each videotaped for a total of 45 minutes in a variety of…

Although specific procedures for "participant observation" (PO) vary, it is always based on the principle that while the observer (O) will adopt preconceived structural outlines and dimensional scales in the course of his summary, he--rather than any outlines or scales--is the instrument for inferring data. Applications of modified PO…

This report, addressed to the broad audience of cognitive scientists, examines research on cognitive change. In the introduction, background considerations are made, previous research is reviewed, and the report itself is outlined. The first chapter, "Finding Goals Outside the Laboratory," discusses how laboratory tasks can obscure research goals…

The practice of interviewing individuals rather than groups has been based largely upon methodological concerns for preventing contamination of data. The assumptions that (1) the data provided by individuals can, in aggregate, yield social truth; (2) individuals are conscious of social phenomena; and (3) the whole of social reality is equal to the…