ABSTRACT
The ways in which teaching and learning in primary classrooms have been conceived have changed radically over the last twenty years. Three distinct approaches are distinguishable, represented by studies on teaching styles, on opportunity to learn, and on classroom task processes. Each of these approaches is considered briefly in terms of their differing theoretical perspectives and they have thrown on teaching and learning. Studies which attempted to relate classroom processes to pupil outcomes in the late 1960s had little to guide them theoretically. There was, at that time, a large literature on learning, but very few, crude, theories of teaching. As such researchers looked to prescriptive theory to guide their investigations. The measurement of the time is generally referred to as time on task, pupil involvement, or engagement. In this approach the pupil is the central focus, with the teacher seen as the manager of the attention and time of pupils in relation to the educational ends of the classroom.
