Developing Teachers’ Decision Making

Process-product research is conceptually truncated because it ignores that teachers are cognitive beings whose behavior is mediated by decision making. This study sought to develop inservice teachers' interactive decision making (IDM)–their ability to "think on their feet" during instruction. An experimental group of teachers was engaged in a nine-week treatment of reflection and role-taking activities focusing on their IDM. A control group read information about IDM. Both groups then conducted lessons in the natural classroom setting and data on their IDM were collected in stimulated-recall interviews. Content analyses of the protocols produced frequency distributions on four measures of IDM. One-way analyses of variance indicated a significant difference on each measure, and effect sizes were well beyond the 80th percentile of the control group.