Selecting Instructional Activities: A Policy-Capturing Analysis.

A policy capturing approach was used in a study that investigated teacher judgment during the selection of instructional activities. This approach uses a simple (usually linear regression) model to reproduce the inferential responses of a particular judge. Central to the approach is the manner in which the judge weighs and combines information in the form of discernable cues or features of the objects being judged. Nineteen fourth and fifth grade teachers were given descriptions of 32 language arts instructional activities reflecting five dimensions that teachers use to judge the quality of teaching materials: (1) amount of student involvement, (2) difficulty for students, (3) integration with other skills or subject matter, (4) demand on teacher time, and (5) fit between stated purpose and instructional process. Individual and composite models showed that integration, difficulty, and demand were the most influential judgment dimensions for the teachers. However, the findings suggest that in a realistically complex judgment task teachers use a wider variety of information than can be represented adequately by a linear regression model. (FL)