Effects of Teaching Methods, Class Effects, and Patterns of Cognitive Teacher‐Pupil Interactions in an Experimental Study in Primary School Classes∗

ABSTRACT The investigation which is reported on tries to contribute to the explanation of school effectiveness and instructional effectiveness by analyzing relations between instructional methods and class contexts. The study consists of an experimental part and an observational part. Within the experiment in fourth grades, two methods of structuring the subject matter which are derived from theories of knowledge representation were compared to a control method. The tendencies of the results emphasize the assumption that already in fourth grades it is possible to acquire higher‐order biological cause‐and‐effect knowledge by using a hierarchical or a network‐like structuring method. Further analysis yielded subgroups with homogeneous intra‐class regressions, which we classified as ‘difference compensating’ and as ‘difference increasing class contexts’. On the subgroup level we found aptitude‐treatment interactions. Different patterns within the verbal‐cognitive teacher‐pupil interaction turned out in the observation analysis. They were located among the treatment groups and between the subgroups ‘difference compensating’ and ‘difference increasing’. Partly these patterns could be used for the description of class contexts. Due to the fact that certain educational features of classes were very important, micro characteristics of class contexts should be investigated more intensively within the research on school and on instruction.