Optimum Teacher-Pupil Interaction for Pupil Growth"

BOTH hypotheses and conclusions relating teacher-pupil behavior to pupil growth tend to be stated in simple, declara tive sentences, as: "Increased teacher indi rectness is associated with increased pupil growth in subject matter and more favor able attitudes"; or, "Decreased teacher criti cism is associated with more favorable pu pil attitudes and increased subject-matter growth." Yet probably the researcher would question whether these relationships could be extended indefinitely, and many class room teachers would be skeptical as soon as the hypothesis was stated. Probably both could agree on such a statement as "Up to some point, increasing indirectness leads to greater subject-matter growth and more favorable attitudes, but beyond that point, further increases in teacher indirectness lead to decreased sub ject-matter growth and less favorable atti tudes." That is, there is an optimal level of teacher indirectness which is less than the maximum possible and an optimal level of teacher criticism which is greater than the minimum possible. Once the idea of an optimal level has been suggested, rather than an open-ended relationship, a question which follows read ily is, "Do all learning tasks have the same optimal levels of teacher behavior?" An affirmative answer would seem unreasonable on the face of it, and there is some evidence supporting the existence of differences in optimal levels.