Concurrent and Sequential Occurrences of Teacher Enthusiasm Behaviors.

Teacher enthusiasm has been linked to increased student achievement and attentiveness. Although enthusiasm is often mentioned to teachers and preservice teachers as being important, they are rarely trained in the particulars of enthusiastic teaching. This investigation was designed to explicate relationships among enthusiasm behaviors in a natural classroom setting. Subjects, four outstanding instructors from West Virginia University, were filmed during two class sessions for 30 minutes each to assess 5 enthusiasm behaviors (eye contact, facial expression, vocalization, gestures, and movement). The presence or absence of these behaviors was scored in 10-second snapshots divided into 2-second intervals for each minute. Concurrent and sequential relations of the enthusiasm behaviors were established by determining which behaviors consistently occurred simultaneously or preceded other enthusiasm behaviors. The results revealed strong concurrent dependencies and sequential dependencies consistently used by these outstanding teachers. Findings may have implications for teacher training and research on the construct of teacher enthusiasm. (Contains 23 references.) (Author/LL)