ABSTRACT
Twenty years ago Walter Doyle reviewed several decades of classroom management research, and examined the factors that influence the construction of orderly classrooms. Among his observations was the finding that learning activities which require students to engage in higher order thinking, allow student mobility and choice, include group work, range outside the classroom, and culminate in procedurally complex tasks are difficult to manage, and often lead to breakdowns in classroom deportment (Doyle, 1983, 1986; see also Blumenfeld, Mergendoller, & Swarthout, 1987).When implementing such problematic activities, he argued that teachers will have to assert more control and direct management of classroom transactions (Doyle, 1986, p. 403; Evertson & Neal, 2005). These conclusions are built upon an established tradition of behaviorally oriented, Skinner-influenced theory about how to control student behavior and manage classroom interaction.
