A Comparative Study of Young Children's Classroom Activities and Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Ten ' informal ' and ten ' comparison ' primary grade classrooms matched according to socio-economic neighbourhood, grade, and instructional organisation were observed using the Pupil Activity Scan, an observation instrument specifically designed for the present study to record pupil behaviour. Analysis of the observational data indicated that children in informal classes engaged in child-to-child interaction, play activities, individual conferences with the teacher, and independent work to a greater extent than comparison pupils. In the comparison classrooms, word analysis activities, printing activities, independent silent reading, and teacher-led group experiences were more prevalent. Substantial variation in curricula was also observed across all classrooms. Testing of the children at the end of the school year indicated no differences between the two groups in language development, problem-solving, fine motor-figural perception, role-taking, or understanding of classification, but the performance of pupils in the informal classrooms appeared to be lower with respect to reading and mathematics.

Open Education and Reading Comprehension of High‐ability and Low‐ability Elementary School Pupils

“…Two of them reported no significant differences between methods of instruction (Barker-Lunn, 1970; Goode, 1973), one study found inconsistent results (Richards and Bolton, 1971) and one showed that conventionally taught pupils scored higher (Biggs, 1967). More recent studies seem to strengthen this general impression of no effect (Wright, 1975;Evans, 1979;Harrison et af., 1981).…”

Impact of classroom activities on beginning reading development

“…In addition, the observer judged the child to be actively, passively, or little involved in an activity or disruptive and whether the child's behavior was primarily directed by the teacher, the other children, or the child himself or herself. (Evans, 1979, describes the various observation categories in detail.) Over the course of the observations, approximately fifty samples of each child's behavior were taken.…”