A Psychological Approach to Research on Teachers' Classroom Decision‐making

A number of different approaches to research on teachers' classroom decision‐making have developed over recent years. This paper outlines a psychological approach, and points out that several exploratory studies of teachers' thoughts and decision‐making indicate that, in the classroom, teachers rarely make decisions in the sense of making choices amongst alternatives at all. It would appear instead that they respond in a rule‐fashioned manner to particular configurations of cues, many of which concern attributes of their pupils. In addition, decision‐making research suggests that several commonly found classroom interaction patterns serve managerial, as opposed to instructional, functions. Whether this is due to inadequacies of the research methods and research designs employed or to the very nature of teaching is problematic. However, differences found between experienced and probationer teachers in both cognitive and behavioural variables would suggest that decision‐making research may make a useful contribution to teacher training.