The relative effectiveness of different forms of microteaching incorporating a sensitisation approach

Abstract

This study examined the relative effectiveness of several different forms of microteaching as compared with equivalent courses in observation-analysis of teaching and regular pre-service study in the principles of teaching. The microteaching courses incorporated a sensitisation, rather than a skills-training, approach and emphasised the usefulness of various questioning strategies and the development of sensitive and flexible control of a repertoire of questioning skills. The subjects were 96 student teachers in the primary school division of a New Zealand Teachers College. Three sets of treatments were studied as interrelated parts of an overall research design. First, an examination was made of the relative effects on teaching performance of microteaching, observation-analysis and regular coursework. Secondly, comparisons were made of the effects of different media (video and audiotape) in the microteaching and observation-analysis programmes. Thirdly, a study was made of the relative effects of microteaching treatments involving different “pupils” (children or student teacher peers), different media (video or audiotape), different question types to be practised (middle or high order), and various combinations of these treatments. Data on subjects’ cognitive questioning skills and talk patterns were obtained by analysing transcripts of discussion lessons taken before and after treatment. The overall and differential effects of treatments in each research design on these behavioural variables were tested by the use of correlated t tests, and analysis of variance and covariance procedures, respectively. In addition, the reaction of microteaching and observation-analysis participants to their learning experiences was investigated by means of opinion questionnaires. Observation-analysis and regular coursework both produced some significant changes in teaching performance. Microteaching, however, was significantly more effective than either of these two treatments in helping student teachers to increase fluency-control in questioning, to develop fewer but more searching discussion episodes through the use of high order initial and probing questions, to decrease the amount of teacher talk, and to minimise questioning that leads to simple yes/no answers. Microteaching also appeared superior to regular coursework in reducing the tendency to repeat pupil responses, and in increasing unsolicited pupil answering and pupil-to-pupil dialogue. A similar pattern of results favouring microteaching was evident in comparisons made between the two media treatments in microteaching and observation-analysis, and between these treatments and regular coursework. The most striking findings in the study, however, were the equivalent effects overall of the different pupil, media and question type treatments in microteaching, and of the various combinations of these treatments. In the development of questioning skills in the small group discussion situation, these results suggest that a Teachers College might reduce the logistic, resource and time problems in the provision of microteaching by having students: (i) teach their peers instead of children; (ii) use audiotape instead of videotape to support analysis of teaching and feedback activities; and (iii) practise some types of questions only while learning to use other questioning skills ‘vicariously’ through observing them being used by fellow microteachers.