Marvin D. Wyne

Time and Learning: Implications for the Classroom Teacher

another important relationship that has implications for teacher behavior and for the training of teachers. A strong, positive, and consistent relationship has been found to exist between the -time students spend engaged in learning and their subsequent achievement performance (Bloom 1974; Hops and Cobb 1974; McKinney et al. 1975; Anderson 1976; Walker and Hops 1976; Anderson and Scott 1978; Good and Beckerman 1978; Hoge and Luce 1979; Rosenshine 1979a; Wyne and Stuck 1979; Stallings 1980; Stuck 1980). The purpose of this article is to examine the rapidly growing body of time-and-learning research from the perspective of the classroom teacher. Although this type of research suffers from some conceptual and methodological problems, several consistent findings have been reported that are relevant to the work of teachers and teacher educators. A

A Response-Cost Procedure for Reduction of Impulsive Behavior of Academically Handicapped Children ~

To test the hypothesis that impulsive problem-solving behavior may be due to a childs low concern about response accuracy on the Matching Familiar Figures Test, a procedure was devised which involved punishment of incorrect responses by withdrawal of tokens given before each trial. This Response-cost procedure and the Standard procedure were given in counterbalanced sequence to two groups of 15 children with a mean chronological age of 13.9 and a mean IQ of 71 who were attending special classes because of academic difficulty. Subjects showed significantly longer latency to first response under the Response-cost procedure and also made significantly fewer errors under this procedure when it was the second one administered. When the Response-cost procedure was given first, the subjects tended to carry over their relatively low error rates to the subsequent trials under the standard procedure.

Time-on-Task and Reading Performance in Underachieving Children

Elementary school pupils identified as being a year or more behind in reading achievement and who were observed as spending low percentages of time-on-task-were selected for participation in a short-term, highly structured program designed to increase task oriented behavior. Two different groups of approximately ten children each participated in each of three separate eight-week intervention phases. For each phase, a comparison group of approximately ten children remained in the regular classroom. Following the intervention, participating pupils were found to spend significantly more time-on-task and to achieve at a significantly higher level in reading than their comparison counterparts. These advantages in reading achievement performance were maintained over a period of four months after their return to regular classrooms on a full-time basis.

Effects of a Short-Term Intervention Resource-Room Program On Task Orientation and Achievement:

Elementary school pupils identified as being a year or more behind in reading and/or math achievement and who were observed as spending low percentages of time on-task were selected for participation in an intensive engineered resource-room program. Groups of approximately 10 children participated in each of 3 8-week intervention phases. For each phase, a comparison group of approximately 10 children remained in the regular classroom. Following the intervention, resource-room pupils spent significantly more time on-task and achieved at a significantly higher level in reading and math than did their comparison counterparts. These advantages were maintained over a period of 4 months after their return to regular classrooms on a full-time basis.

Assessing Teacher Performance Using an Observation Instrument Based on Research Findings

Not all the skills considered essential for effective teaching can be part of a single instrument, say these authors, but the instru ment described here includes what their study found to be the generic practices that teachers need to perform successfully in the classroom. It is especially useful for helping beginning teachers, they write.

Evaluation of Teacher Training: The Master of Education Program in Special Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of a teacher training program to prepare professional personnel is a difficult task. To accomplish this task, the graduate teacher training program in special education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill employed a three-level evaluation design. The three levels included documentation data related to the content of the MEd teacher training program; student satisfaction data for making judgments about the quality of the education and training provided; and performance data designed to assess teaching skills, professional knowledge, and abilities to develop professional products. A synthesis of data from these three levels is used to make informed decisions for improvements in the training program.

Generalized effects of a highly structured time-on-task intervention:

Peer ratings of the behaviors of 42 third and 73 sixth grade low-achieving children were examined to assess the extent co which effects of a highly structured time-on-task program generalized to the regular classroom. When compared with low-achieving peers who received supplementary remedial instruction in basic skills in a tutorial program, time-on-task students received significantly higher post-intervention peer ratings on task orientation. These results indicated that effects on task orientation generalized to the regular class, but effects on classroom misbehavior or social acceptance did not generalize. Implications for the availability of time-on-task in classrooms were discussed.