The effects of black and white and color illustrations on student achievement were studied to investigate the relationships between cognitive styles and instructional design. Field dependence (FD) and field independence (FI) were chosen as the cognitive style variables. Subjects were 85 freshman students in the Iowa State University Psychology…

Researchers as well as others evaluating teachers or programs are often interested in the verbal and non-verbal behaviors related to the learning of students in classrooms. The Student Record of Behavior (StRoBe) is a classroom observation instrument designed to provide simple low inference information concerning student behaviors related to…

The ways in which teachers and administrators manage their time is the focus of this four-part study, which includes: (1) an introductory overview of a 1984 study of K-12 teachers' use of time; (2) a study of special education teachers' use of time in two counties in Georgia; (3) a study of successful elementary principals' time budgeting; and (4)…

Data on how many minutes of instruction were allocated to various aspects of teaching initial addition and subtraction concepts and skills in the Developing Mathematical Processes (DMP) curriculum were summarized for 20 classrooms in grades 1-3. The same curriculum materials were used in each class at each grade level. The number of minutes spent…

The report describes accomplishments of a project to identify patterns of task persistence among handicapped preschoolers and the teacher behaviors that facilitate task persistence. In phase I of the project, 101 children (including 12 nonhandicapped, 57 mildly, 28 moderately, and 4 severely handicapped students) participated in an examination of…

To assess the condition of American education in the next decade, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) should focus on collecting data in the following major areas: (1) the quality and quantity of time that is allocated to various activities in the classroom; (2) the concerns of teachers, including their working conditions and time…

This report contains the synthesis of Research on Instructional Effectiveness in Elementary Schools (RUETE). The emphasis of the research fellows was on large scale, classroom-based studies related to student achievement. Current research in the areas of active teaching behaviors, activity and task stuctures, and academic learning time is…

The project attempted to experimentally validate the use of tutoring and small group teaching formats as alternatives to one-to-one teaching procedures involving autistic children. Single-subject studies and experimental-control group designs were used to compare the effects of tutoring and small group teaching formats in public and private school…

This handbook reviews findings from the research literature on effective schools to ascertain their relevance to Language Arts instruction, and to guide school administrators in their efforts to improve instruction for limited English speaking (LEP) students. The following chapters are included: (1) Introduction; (2) Principal as Instructional…

The study attempted to decrease the talking-out behavior and increase the pre-writing skills of a 7-year-old educable mentally retarded boy in a special school for children with orthopedic handicaps. Differential reinforcement of other (DRO) behaviors was used during 30 minutes a day four times a week. Appropriate behaviors of the subjects and…

Collecting time-on-task data is necessary in order to research methods for increasing student time-on-task and to provide feedback to teachers on what teaching behaviors produce high levels of on-task behaviors in students. A student and a teacher behavior data collection instrument developed for research in the area of academic learning time is…

This study measures performance frequency of leadership tasks of approximately 20 percent of Colorado's principals. Principals most experienced do not differ from others on the frequency assessment scale, yet spend more time on instructional leadership activities, which range from teacher support (professional growth opportunities, rewards) and…

The observational study investigated the process of mainstreaming 32 learning handicapped children (grades 4-5) into regular education programs. Ss were enrolled in special day classes and mainstreamed for approximately one hour per day. Systematic observations focused on the handicapped student, nonhandicapped students, and the regular class…

Research has identified several aspects of effective teacher behavior, as measured by student performance. Three aspects of effective teacher behavior are in the areas of instruction, management, and acceptance. Instructionally, teachers should try to provide more variety to deal with different learning styles; they should ask purposeful questions…

This three-section paper describes a course for teachers on classroom management, offered at the University of Houston (Texas). The first section describes the course's analytic-pluralistic approach to classroom management. The four-stage process is outlined, in which the teacher: (1) specifies classroom conditions desirable to foster student…