Five Faces of Research on Teaching

Researchers use five different approaches as they try to learn more about what makes a good teacher. "What makes a good teacher?" is a question that fascinates parents, educators, and behavioral scientists. Several variations of this question occur in the litera ture of research on teaching and teacher effectiveness. Behaviorists ask which teacher behaviors are system atically and causally related to student achievement. Cognitive psychologists study the mental processes thought to guide and determine teacher behavior. Aptitude treatment interaction researchers ask what types of instructional treatment are most effective with different types of students. And ethnographers describe and interpret life in classrooms in terms of the social context. In any field of inquiry, the answers we develop are shaped by the form of the questions we ask and the methods we use to resolve them. Research on teaching is no exception. To oversimplify a bit, I see five approaches to research on teaching that can be grouped intp two broad categories: primarily quantita tive approaches and primarily qualitative approaches.