The Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study: Overview and Selected Findings, 1974-1975.

The study presented here examines whether an ethnographic approach to the study of teaching yields new insight into the teaching-learning process. Two-hundred teachers, who differed in measured effectiveness, were recruited from thirteen school districts in the state of California. Each teacher taught two experimental teaching units (ETU's) of two-weeks duration. Each ETU included an introduction to the teacher, giving a rationale for the unit; performance objectives; pre- and post-examinations for students; and a variety of instructional materials and activities. After test data were collected, posttest scores were regressed on pretest scores for each grade level. Based on class pretest means, three strata were created: low, middle, and high-achieving classrooms within each subject area and grade level. Twelve observers were selected and trained. This included learning to read educational ethnographies, practicing in classrooms, and observing films of classrooms. The ethnographers were trained to provide both reading and mathematics protocols each day; give informal protocols based on observations during recess, talks with principals, and conversations with peers; and asked to give a summary protocol emphasizing important anthropological concepts useful for studying education. Six raters were brought together for two weeks to read a pair of protocols a day, describing a more effective and less effective classroom. They were asked to describe as many ways as possible that the two classrooms differed using any desired terminology. They generated 211 dimensions. This list was revised to 61 variables and used to do a more extensive study involving 20 raters using specially constructed rating forms. (DMT)