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Four major questions are addressed in this research report: What is the relationship between student academic learning time and student achievement?; What are the relationships between teaching processes and academic learning time?; Are teaching processes, academic learning time, and student achievement related to student attitudes?; and, Are instructional variables related to retention of achievement over the summer? An Academic Learning Time Model of classroom instruction is presented. Design, instrumentation, and data collection methods of this research project are outlined. Analyses of the joint relationships among the variables--teaching processes, academic learning time, and student achievement--are presented, as well as analyses of student attitudes and retention of achievement. (JD)

This executive summary of the multiyear Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study (BTES) focuses principally on the findings of Phase III-B of this research program on teaching effectiveness. One outcome of the BTES study was a concept that makes it possible to measure individual student learning by noting observable variables of student behavior in the classroom. Academic Learning Time (ALT), as the concept is called, is defined as the amount of time a student spends attending to academic tasks while also performing with a high success rate. The more ALT a student accumulates, the more he or she can be assumed to be learning. The study also revealed five general interrelated components of effective teaching: diagnosis, prescription, presentation, monitoring, and feedback. Teachers who pay attention to all these factors tend to have students who accumulate high rates of ALT. Two other variables that are correlated with effective teaching emerged from the study. One was academic orientation, or the extent to which the teacher emphasized, valued, and worked toward cognitive achievement. The other was orientation toward affect, or the extent to which the teacher was aware of, acknowledged, and valued student feelings. (Author/JM)