Studies of primary education within the UK have shown that small groups can feature within classrooms; however, equivalent research within secondary education remains scarce. Research has established effective group work approaches, yet secondary teachers may encounter difficulties employing approaches tied to parameters embedded within primary…

Relationships among peer social interaction rate, classroom activity, and teaching style were investigated to determine whether teaching style could be defined in terms of differential student interaction rates across various classroom activities. Peer interaction rates were determined in three primary level classrooms representing various…

The author concludes that Flanders' System of Interaction Analysis can be a valuable device for training teachers, particularly if carefully used in conjunction with other instruments; as a research device, problems of sampling rate and category definitions limit its usefulness. (Author)

Descriptive data were collected over a two-month period on two middle elementary classrooms to which student teachers had been assigned. From this data typical patterns of teaching/learning behavior were identified for each classroom. The student teachers were then interchanged, and the data collection continued for another two months. Comparison…

This paper analyzes both Flanders' and the Foreign Language Interaction (FLint) methods of classroom observation and concludes that both systems are deficient in accuracy, reliability and practicality. Observing, recording and decision-making difficulties are inherent, and system complexities and teacher biases add to the problems. (CHK)

This paper is designed to help youth's significant others harness dissident youth's energy into the reins of society's problems. Included is a comparison between healthy rebellion (arising out of love for something) and neurotic rebellion (having no purpose except to fight conformity or the establishment). The author classifies secondary and…

This paper reports on an analysis of some manifest, surface and verbal characteristics of the classroom behaviors of students and teachers in the first, sixth, and eleventh grades of urban Missouri schools selected for their composition relative to black and white population. Findings indicate that: (1) on the average verbal participation by…

The feasiblity of an observational rating scale which would provide objective, reliable and quantifiable measures of social and affective behavior was investigated. The Observation of Socialization Behavior (OSB), focusing on peer-group behavior of pre-school children and designed for use in unstructured situations was developed. Two forms of the…

Though the need for a language or languages to describe teacher behavior has been recognized for some time, few systems of analysis exist. A conceptual framework and a set of terms have been developed to describe the messages students and teachers send and receive in second language classrooms. This system is called FOCUS (an acronym for Foci for…

Videotaped group work lessons of an elementary school third grade class provide material for study of the non-verbal aspect of group behavior. A system of activity categories is developed and a typology of pupils' working methods in group study distinguishes types and characteristic forms of activity. The following activity categories are used in…