The relationship between concept teaching behaviors and increases in learning of high school students

The effect of specific concept teaching behaviors and clusters of concept teaching behaviors on pupil learning was evaluated, student teachers at a large Southern university were videotaped teaching two different concept lessons at the beginning and end of their teaching experience. Using the Concept Teaching Index, the videotapes were analyzed for duration and frequency of specific concept teaching behaviors. High school pupils were pre- and post-tested on the concepts, and gain scores were computed to evaluate student learning after adjusting for concept difficulty. Specific teaching behaviors and clusters of teaching behaviors were correlated with pupil gain scores. Using regression analysis with pupil gain as the dependent variable, three concept teaching behaviors (Asking students to give examples. Elaboration of concept and critical features, and Restates definition and critical content) were found to contribute significantly to variance. Two other variables, a measure of pupil aptitude and student teachers' ACT scores, also contributed to explaining variance, student teachers' ACT scores correlated significantly with positive teaching behaviors.