The Project on Involvement: An Interim Report. Occasional Paper No. 4.

This paper describes Project on Involvement, which was designed to investigate student involvement in a task by defining it in terms of nonverbal behaviors and by identifying its dimensions. To accomplish these objectives, eight trained graduate students made 15-minute observations of each of 44 preschool children. The children were observed in the natural classroom setting from behind one-way screens and all nonverbal behaviors were recorded in diary fashion. The data obtained were analyzed using a content analysis procedure that included the following steps: devising a category system, checking reliability in applying the category system, and revising the category system. There were three outcomes of the analysis: (1) a definition of involvement that refers to nonverbal behaviors and their modifiers which indicate "how" a body expresses itself and "how" it moves; (2) eight dimensions of involvement: speed, tension, frequency, duration, specific-global, direction, frequency of change, and range of movement and sound; and (3) some ideas about how these outcomes might be utilized in the future development of an instrument. Concluding discussion focuses on the implications of the project both for classroom procedures and further studies. Five appendixes and an annotated bibliography are included. (SDH)