Studies of Learning in the School Setting

Instead of attempting to review the variety of classroom learning research relevant to all the goals of educational research workers, the purpose of this chapter is to focus on approaches and perspectives which reflect primary emphasis on the goal of explanation of classroom learning, emphasizing developments in classroom observation systems and matters of general methodology, i.e., the conceptual frameworks and the research strategies within which classroom learning research is conducted. The basic reason for this emphasis on general methodology is the belief that difficulties with problems of general methodology are partly responsible for the history of disappointing results from classroom research. According to this belief, the conceptual frameworks of classroom research somehow have not been optimum for developing the specific concepts, theories, methods, techniques, and explanations of classroom learning. An important opportunity for interdisciplinary research characterized by larger scope and a more systematic attack on classroom learning problems was provided by a number of research and development centers and regional laboratories funded by the U.S. Office of Education. The application of other disciplines to classroom learning problems continued, as illustrated by the Stanford conferences on learning and the educational process; the highlights of the 1964 conference were reported in Krumboltz (1965). Boocock (1966) reviewed research in the sociology of learning, including the effects of classroom structure and techniques, the school system as a whole, student peer groups, and social groups outside the school system. Philosophical analyses of the concepts of teaching, learning, and related concepts reduced some of the conceptual confusion in this set of concepts central to the educational process. Perhaps most important, additional classroom observation systems were developed, reflecting a growing recognition of the potential of tape recordings for determining more rigorously the influence on classroom learning of a variety of factors such as teaching, atmosphere, and especially language. Although the presentation is even more terse than is customary in REVIEW chapters, the reviewer's main intent is that the reader will capture enough of the sense of the presentation to decide what material is most relevant to his own research, or to evaluate the present status of