International Portal of Teacher Education

Source: Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 72(4) 431–447

(Reviewed by the Portal Team)

This study compared the effects of three learning environments, each providing a different analytic perspective on teaching and classroom management in particular:
(a) from a video-supported observer perspective analyzing videos of other teachers’ teaching,
(b) from a non-supported protagonist perspective by analyzing own teaching without having a video at hand, and
(c) from both a video-supported observer and protagonist perspective but having a video at hand for analyzing other teachers’ and own teaching.
The authors hypothesized that the latter would be most efficient learning environment.
The main research question of the present quasi-experimental intervention study was as follows: Does analyzing own and other teachers’ videotaped teaching (treatment group: video and teaching [TG-VT]) improve PVCM and multiperspectivity more efficiently than
(a) analyzing videos from only other teachers’ teaching (treatment group: video [TGV]) or
(b) analyzing only own memorized teaching without having a video at hand (treatment group: teaching [TG-T])?

Method

Sample
The total sample comprised 179 student teachers.
From this sample, 52 students took a course in which they analyzed videos of their own and of other teachers’ teaching with respect to classroom management (TG-VT), 46 students analyzed their own teaching from their memories (TG-T), 36 students analyzed videos of others teachers’ teaching in a third course (TG-V), and 45 students served as a control group (CG).
Only 111 of the 179 students participated in the voluntary follow-up test including standardized tests.
In addition to these standardized tests in the pre-, post-, and follow-up-tests, the authors assessed professional vision of classroom management (PVCM) through an open-response format in a session at the beginning and the end of the three training courses.
The three training courses were part of the curriculum for elementary school teacher studies leading to a “Bachelor of Education.”
They were offered as one of several elective seminars in psychology for teacher education as part of the Bachelor program.
Participants in the CG were recruited in other courses for educational psychology in teacher education that rarely overlapped with the contents of the training courses.
They also did not teach own lessons in these courses.

Instruments
The study took a multimethod approach to assess learning effects in PVCM.
First, the authors used a standardized video-based test with rating items to measure knowledge-based reasoning over the description and interpretation of critical classroom management events in elementary school classrooms.
Second, they used a video analysis with an open-response format to measure student teachers’ noticing and multiperspectivity, because noticing cannot be assessed with rating items that would already direct attention toward specific events in the classroom (Seidel & Stürmer, 2014).
Third, strategic knowledge on classroom management was assessed using a situational judgment approach.

Results and discussion
The authors found that TG-VT had significantly higher values in PVCM in the standardized assessment than the CG and than the other two treatment groups directly after the interventions.
In addition, TG-VT noticed more critical classroom events in the open-response format than the other two training groups.
These results met the authors’ assumption that combining a protagonist perspective from memorized teaching with an observer perspective from a video on the same classroom events would be more successful than having only one perspective at hand.
In the follow-up test 4 months later, TG-VT and also TG-T had significantly higher PVCM than the CG, indicating that analyzing own teaching with the help of a video combined with videos of other teachers’ teaching as well as analyzing own teaching from memory supported by observation protocols helped student teachers to increase their PVCM.
TG-VT had the advantage of connecting the protagonist with the observer perspective of their own teaching, but also viewed videos of other teachers’ teaching providing the possibility to contrast own teaching with teaching of experienced teachers.
Although analyzing videos of own teaching and of unknown teachers’ teaching is confounded in the condition of TG-VT, the authors decided that TG-VT should also analyze videos of other teachers’ teaching, because this allowed us to implement a respectful culture of conversation among the student teachers before they started analyzing their own video (Gaudin & Chaliès, 2015).
They gave this aspect a higher priority.
One surprising result was that participants of TG-V analyzing only stock videos did not differ significantly from the CG.
They also noticed significantly less classroom management events and showed significantly less integrated perspectives in their written analyses of a video after the intervention in comparison to TG-VT and TG-T.
However, many previous studies with student teachers have used videos of other teachers’ teaching to successfully promote professional vision (Gold et al., 2013; Santagata & Angelici, 2010).
Another interesting point is that members of the CG also increased their scores in the standardized measure of PVCM.
The reasons for this might be twofold:
On one hand, participants in the CG had also been receiving teacher education and would have made learning gains during the usual course of the term.
On the other hand, small effect sizes might be due to practice effects through taking the same test a second time.
Regarding the results for knowledge of classroom management (KCM), they found support for their assumption that participants who were enrolled in one of the classroom management interventions would have higher values in KCM after the training and 4 months later, but would not differ from each other due to same learning opportunities with respect to theoretical concepts of classroom management.
To sum up their findings, promoting PVCM is most effective when student teachers have the opportunity to compare, contrast, and reflect on their memories of a taught lesson in combination with a video of this lesson.
Their conclusion is that competences do not simply evolve through teaching experience and its unsystematic reflection.
Rather, a databased description and analysis of own teaching behavior based on evidence-based criteria of effective classroom management is central to initiate change (Gage & McDaniel, 2012).

References
Gage, N. A., & McDaniel, S. (2012). Creating smarter classrooms: Data-based decision making for effective classroom management. Beyond Behavior, 22(1), 48–55.
Gaudin, C., & Chaliès, S. (2015). Video viewing in teacher education and professional development: A literature review. Educational Research Review, 16, 41–67.
Gold, B., Förster, S., & Holodynski, M. (2013). Evaluation eines videobasierten Trainingsseminars zur Förderung der professionellen Wahrnehmung von Klas-senführung im Grundschulunterricht [Evaluation of a video-based training to promote the professional vision of classroom management in elementary education]. Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 27(3), 141–155.
Santagata, R., & Angelici, G. (2010). Studying the impact of the Lesson Analysis Framework on preservice teachers’ abilities to reflect on videos of classroom teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(4), 339–349.
Seidel, T., & Stürmer, K. (2014). Modeling and measuring the structure of professional vision in preservice teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 51(4), 739–771.