Classroom Process Research: Present and Future.

Abstract

Classroom process studies have played an imporProcess-Product Studies tant role in research on teaching for the past 25 Process-product studies are designed to delineate years. Knowledge gained from classroom research causal relationships between classroom processes, serves two purposes: (1) understanding classroom SUch as teacher behaviors and outcomes — generally processes and (2) increasing the effectiveness of edustudent achievement. The purpose of these studies cation. In relation to these two purposes, two types is provide information on effective teaching skills, of teaching process studies have evolved: those which behaviors and/or competencies to be used in teacher attempt to describe or define the process and those training, licensing and selection, which attempt to determine which teaching processes Examples of two major process-product studies are effective in relation to desired outcomes, such as funded by NIE in its early days were the California student achievement. The latter type, called processBeginning Teacher Evaluation Study, Phases I and product research by Dunkin and Biddle (1974), has ji and the Correlates of Effective Teaching Project dominated research on teaching for the last 10 years. at the University 0f Texas R&D Center for Teacher For example, eight chapters of Dunkin and Biddle's Education. The California Beginning Teacher Evalu (1974) work were devoted to process-product studies ation Study (BTES) was just commencing Phase II while only one was acknowledged as descriptive. when it was transferred from the Office of Economic (Chapter 7). However, interest in descriptive classOpportunity to NIE. The BTES was originally con room research is increasing and has attracted to the ceived as a five-year study designed to provide the study of classrooms: researchers from a number of California Commission for Teacher Preparation and different disciplines, linguists, ecological psycholoLicensing with information on measurable teacher gists, cognitive psychologists and sociologists. competencies known to be related to student achieve While descriptive and process-product studies are ment in reading and mathematics. This information logically related (descriptive research should inform was be used jn devising a new teacher licensing the more policy-oriented process-product research), system Administered by the Commission and con researchers in the field have traditionally formed two ducted by Fred MacDonald at Educational Testing separate schools. Gage (1966), for example, wrote Service, Phase II was a hypothesis generating phase about the describers on the one hand and the imand involved intensive observation and testing of 50 provers on the other. Recently, however, there are Grade 2 and 50 Grade 5 teachers and their students