Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Dissertation

Keywords

Observation (Educational method); Interaction analysis in education; Television in teacher training; Teachers--Training of;

Abstract

The purpose of this study was two-fold: (a) to investigate differences in preservice teachers' ability to identify and report verbal interaction in the classroom during direct observation as compared to television-mediated observation, and (b) to examine the advantages and disadvantages of direct and television-mediated classroom observation as perceived by preservice teachers.

Subjects in this study were preservice teacher education majors (N = 96) from four university class sections enrolled in professional sequence courses prior to student teaching. The data were analyzed using a 2 x 2 ANOVA (mode of observation x tally type). The independent variable of mode of observation had two levels, direct and television-mediated. The second independent variable of tally type had two levels, teacher and student interaction. The dependent variable was accuracy scores tallied by preservice teachers.

Results from the two-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant main effect for (a) mode of observation, (b) tally type, and (c) an interaction. It was concluded that preservice teachers tally with equal accuracy in the teacher interaction category during direct and television-mediated observation. However, in the student interaction category, preservice teacher tallied with greater accuracy when using television-mediated observation when compared to direct observation.

Common themes that emerged from preservice teachers in the direct observation groups included: (a) comments concerning the high number of teacher and student interactions in a short period of time, and (b) that direct observation gave them ideas for their future classrooms and a "feel" for the classroom. Preservice teachers also noted some disadvantages of direct classroom observation: (a) identifying and reporting verbal interaction in the classroom was very difficult when teachers utilized cooperative learning activities because of noisy environments, and (b) the subjects also felt that they were disrupting the elementary students by being physically present in the classroom.

The themes that emerged from comments made by the preservice teachers in the television-mediated observation groups included: (a) the focusing ability of the camera, (b) watching the observation with their professor simultaneously, and (c) not having to walk to the observation site. The disadvantages included: (a) not being able to see all the students who were talking at all times, and (b) that the elementary students may have been distracted by the camera and technical assistants.

Year of Submission

1996

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

First Advisor

Sharon Smaldino

Date Original

5-1996

Object Description

1 PDF file (vi, 90 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Download

Comments?

Share

COinS