ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to review and summarize research on the relationship of instruction and time-on-task. It discusses implications for curriculum and instruction that can be derived from the research evidence. The chapter presents the importance of time-on-task as a key variable in understanding and improving classroom instruction which has been reinforced. Time-on-task has been conceptualized as an alterable variable, and one which has a significant and possibly causal relationship with school learning. Classrooms associated with low degrees of time-on-task were those in which a variety of activities were occurring simultaneously; and in which students spent more of their time working alone. The concept of academic learning time has implications for engaged time. An awareness of time-on-task and the planning and managing of instruction focused on producing high levels of time-on-task in a large number of students is likely to yield the most effective classroom instruction currently possible.
