Studying and Understanding the Instructional Contexts of Classrooms: Using our Past to Forge our Future

Abstract

In this article, we focus particularly on the instructional contexts of classrooms. We discuss five interrelated questions: (a) How has classroom context been defined? (b) Why is classroom context important to study? (c) How have classroom and instructional contexts been studied? (d) What are the essential components for studying the instructional contexts of classrooms? (e) What are the future directions for the study of classroom contexts?The study of classroom contexts has a long history but has remained somewhat on the periphery in our discipline of educational psychology. Although most formal instruction takes place in classrooms, educational psychologists have tended to study educational outcomes and processes from the perspective of individual differences, as if students' membership in classrooms were irrelevant or "noise" in our data analyses. A quick glance at major journals in educational psychology reveals many more research articles focused on intrapsychological processes than on those interpersonal factors that may influence such processes. Similarly, we have a tradition in educational psychology of pursuing questions outside of classrooms or so-called authentic learning situations. We appear to want to isolate basic processes by controlling for other influences on student learning, motivation, and achievement. Classroom research is messy, but it is our contention in this article that it is precisely this error variance that needs to be explored.As we read the literature and attend conferences, we see a growing interest in the study of classroom contexts. Although there does not appear to be a common definition of context among researchers who use the term, there is a general increase in the willingness to experiment with a variety of methodologies that provide better answers to our increasingly more complex questions. In this article on classroom contexts, we revisit our past, discuss the present, and speculate about the future of classroom-based research in educational psychology. More specifically, we discuss five interrelated questions: (a) How has classroom context been defined? (b) Why is classroom context important to study? (c) How have classroom and instructional contexts been studied? (d) What are the essential components for studying the instructional contexts of classrooms? (e) What are future directions for the study of classroom contexts? HOW HAS CLASSROOM CONTEXT BEEN DEFINED?At first glance, the meaning of classroom context seems self-evident, but our search in the literature revealed almost as many definitions as studies. In most instances these definitions were implicit rather than explicit. One of the central areas of confusion is the use of classroom context to denote both the study of variables that contribute to understanding context and the specific research goal of studying context. In other words, there is research that attempts to understand the interrelations among the parts and there is research that focuses on the whole, which is defined as more than the sum of its par...

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