Determined (in separate studies conducted during 1977-78, 1978-79, 1979-80, 1980-81) what changes in teachers' anxiety about teaching science occurred as preservice elementary teachers completed science courses designed to meet their professional needs. Significant findings from these studies (which used the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) are…

The study was designed to measure the effects of a treatment designed to improve inservice teachers' interactive decision making (IDM). A group who received treatment and a control group who read information about IDM were compared. One way analyses of variance indicated a significant difference on each measure of IDM. (Author/DWH)

Concludes that beliefs about reading influence teachers' decisions about the importance of reading outcomes typically taught in the elementary grades, and that teachers who hold student-centered reading beliefs are not likely to value instruction that focuses on decoding. (FL)

This paper reports on the curriculum of primary teacher training institutions in Greece. A survey of 324 primary teachers found that primary teachers seriously question the structure and content of the curriculum in these institutions and propose focusing the curriculum on educational theory, psychology, and basic subjects. (MT)

Notes that while teachers see the value of reading, they personally prefer to watch television in their leisure time. In addition, they prefer to engage their students in independent activities not necessarily related to reading tasks than to encourage them to read books or listen to books being read. (FL)

A plea is made for the mathematics education community to support the need for elementary school mathematics specialists. Roles of such specialists in primary as well as intermediate grades are listed. (MNS)

Tested 40 teachers and teacher educators to determine whether educators associated with clinical vs. scholarly/scientific work settings would view classroom events using different perspectives. These educators responded to three videotaped and six written scenarios of classroom events. Significant differences were found between work-setting…

Data are presented that establish the level of teachers' perceived stress. Results indicate that teachers are moderately stressed and that stressors that center on the classroom are more of a problem than organizationally focused stressors. (Author/DF)

Contracts offer a valuable tool for the elementary teacher interested in the individualization of instruction. Some standard suggestions for implementing contracts between the student and the teacher were discussed. (Author/RK)

This study investigated current classroom assessment practices by surveying teachers in New Zealand at years 5, 7, and 9 on the assessments they use in the areas of English and mathematics, the purposes of the assessment, and the assessments that provide the most useful information. A total of 676 questionnaires were returned from 311 full…

School classroom evaluation methods using student achievement results are currently a significant topic of investigation in the educational accountability arena. The objective of this study was to identify effective and ineffective elementary school classrooms based on student and teacher characteristics. In this conceptualization, teacher's…

This study was designed to discover the nature of interactions between effective teachers in regular-sized classes with 25 or more students and small-size classes with fewer than 18 students. Eleven public school primary classrooms were observed, and the interactions between the teacher and students were studied. Verbal and nonverbal interactions…

This study examined the lesson plans of 67 teacher interns in Kentucky to determine the extent to which their lesson objectives were designed to develop higher order thinking skills in their students. Copies of the first lesson plans submitted by first year teachers in one large Kentucky school system for a 3-year period, 1995-1998, constituted…

In this paper part of the results obtained by a research project called "Primary Teachers' Thinking about the Concept of Volume and its Teaching", performed from 1997 to 2001, are reported. This paper focuses in one of the two main objectives of the aforementioned research: To describe the mental object volume of the participant…

A year-long study focused on how the teacher-librarian partnership was enacted within different elementary school contexts where there is a literature-based approach for instruction. Teachers and librarians at two schools were observed for a total of 392 hours. Purposeful conversations to gather information or interviews were employed in…