Instructional Strategies in Mainstream Classrooms

Fifty mainstream teachers provided information concerning their experience and educational background, their attitudes toward teaching effectiveness, and their mainstream classes, in order to demonstrate relationships between these variables and teachers' selections of instructional strategies in mainstream classes. The Bender Classroom Structure Questionnaire (BCSQ) was used as the dependent measure. Consistent relationships were demonstrated between teachers' attitudes toward personal teaching effectiveness and the instructional strategies they selected. Both teacher attitude toward personal teaching efficacy and class size predicted variance in the teachers' selection of educational strategies for their mainstream classes, yielding an R 2 of .42. An exploratory analysis was conducted that included a factor analysis of the BCSQ and regression procedures designed to predict variance in each factor. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of continued research on instructional strategies in the mainstream.