An Empirical Investigation of Teacher Clarity

Abstract

ABSTRACT In an attempt to investigate and define the of presentation complex of teacher behaviors and to relate them to a number of presage and context variables, four instruments consisting of selected low inference behaviors were administered to four groups of ninth-grade students for rating the behaviors of their most clear and least clear teachers. The resulting data sets were factor analyzed.to a principal aids, varimax rotated solutiou with resultant factors somewhat consistent across forms and highly consistent across clarity levels for each form. The data suggests that teacher clarity consists of a general dimension involving explaining concepts in an understandable manner, at an appropriate pace, involving use of examples and illustrations in presenting material. Practical implications appear in several areas: (1) junior high school teacherg who wish to be judged as clear teachers should use clarifying techniques in their teaching methods; (2) teacher educators who wish to train clear teachers should stress the practice and frequent use of understandable presentations, appropriate pace, and use of examples; (3) researchers might well find similar success in identifying and defining other high inference constructs (e.g., teacher variability, enthusiasm, task-oriented behavior, etc.) by using similar methods. (MB)