ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the classroom behaviour by any one of the methods described in one way of teasing out the complex interactive variables that together form 'a class'. Initially, interest in classroom behaviour arose out of attempts to characterize 'effective' teaching and, as in leadership research; there were attempts to link teacher characteristics with pupil achievement. As in leadership research, studies of characteristics were accompanied by, and gave way to, situational studies which stressed 'the teacher in the classroom'. Interaction analysis is a systematic means of analysing classroom behaviour in terms of predetermined categories. Probably the best known of all systems is that of Flanders which relates to classroom climate and is particularly concerned with the balance between 'initiation' and 'response'. An alternative means of observing behaviour in the classroom is to use an unstructured, open-ended field observation approach which attempts to gain information on a wide range of phenomena.
