The Relationship of Instructional Practices to Student Learning in Rural Schools.

Abstract

This paper describes the results of a study conducted to assess improvement in knowledge, attitudes and behavior of elemen-tary school students in rural schools toward good nutrition. A stratified random sample of ISO elementary teachers was selected from a group of 468 who participated in a summer nutrition education program. Students from the teachers ' classrooms served as subjects (n = 3600). Data were collected on the types of instructional activities used by the teachers (traditional vs. non-raditional) and the relationship to students ' knowledge, attitudes and behavior. Correlations showed no significant relation-ship among teacher activity scores and student performance. ANDVA showed teachers who used fewer traditional instruc-tional methods had students with the largest gains. This paper describes the results of a study designed to assess the impact different instructional practices had on the knowledge, attitudes and behavior of rural elemen-tary school students toward good nutrition. There are data available which tend to support the no-tion that using a variety of instructional techniques can facilitate student learning. Data on aptitude-treatment in-teraction demonstrate that students with different char-