Reading Teachers' Judgments, Plans, and Decision Making.

Abstract

Particularly over the past decade, a variety of studies have investigated the nature of teachers' judgments, plans, and decisions and the relation ship of these to behavior (see Shavelson and Stern, 1981 for a review). Findings reveal that instructors' thinking and decision making profoundly influence what students learn. For example, in teaching reading, decisions about grouping students have a potent effect: Children in the highest reading group may be paced 13 times as fast as children in the lowest reading group, with test scores reflecting this difference in pacing (Shavelson and Borko, 1979). This article summarizes the major findings on how teachers'judgments, instructional planning, and interactive decision making affect their classroom actions, in particular their behaviors regarding reading instruction, and discusses implications for reading educators. The article begins by exposing the assumptions underlying research on teachers' thinking and decisions, then summarizes the find ings and presents implications.