The effects of teacher training in Madeline Hunter's instructional effectiveness model on teacher performance and selected student variables on the secondary school level

The search for instructional methodologies which maximize student achievement has been of central concern to educators for many years. Intensified by the recent focus on staff development and school reform initiatives, this search has begun to produce models for school improvement. The majority of the research studies on these models have centered on the academic achievement of inner-city elementary school students in reading and math. One effort to operationalize the research findings has been the instructional model developed by Dr. Madeline Hunter. The few research studies which have been done on her model focus on the effects of teacher training on teacher performance at the elementary level and on student achievement in reading and mathematics. Claims about the effectiveness of teacher training at the secondary level across a wide variety of subject areas and on selected student variables have not been thoroughly substantiated. It was the purpose of this study to determine if the Instructional Effectiveness Model of Madeline Hunter could be applied at the secondary level and to determine what effects the training would have on teacher performance and on selected student variables.

This study was conducted employing 14 secondary school teachers, seven in the experimental group and seven in the control group. one class from each teacher's schedule was videotaped prior to and after training. Using the Instructional Skills Observation Instrument each videotape was scored by outside observers. Teachers in the experimental group were also presented with four questionnaires which were used to determine the teacher's perceptions of the content and process of the training sessions. Students in each class (N= 245) were measured in regard to class attendance, number of class discipline referrals, class grade point average, class attitude, and class achievement. In addition, four students from each teacher's class (56 students in total) were interviewed to determine their opinion of how the training affected them.

The information obtained from the classroom observations, teacher questionnaires and student interviews was supplemented by ethnographic data.

The findings indicated that the teachers in the experimental group did not teach differently than teachers in the control group. The findings also indicated that the selected secondary students of teachers in the experimental group did not differ from selected secondary students of teachers in the control group in overall class attendance, class grade point average, class attitude, and class achievement. There was a significant difference in overall number of class discipline referrals by sex. The correlation between the teacher's performance score as measured on the ISOI and their mean class score on each of the student variables was not significant. The findings from the ethnographic data corroborated the quantitative findings.