Classroom Structure and Student Participation: An Aptitude-by-Treatment Interaction Approach to Instructional Research for the Hearing-Impaired. Paper Series, #47.

The study, involving 53 students from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, investigated the relevance of certain aptitude-by-treatment interaction findings with normally hearing students to the instruction of hearing impaired students. Instructional variables investigated were classroom structure and student participation. Student aptitudes included were mainifest anxiety and perceived locus of control. The main effects of classroom structure and student participation were also considered. Outcome measures included students' rating of difficulty, teacher skill, teacher affect, and overall ratings. Learning performance was assessed with a completion-type examination of factual recall which was administered immediately after the rating of the instructional session. Among findings were the following: high participation resulted in higher ratings of teacher skill and overall ratings; high structure yielded higher overall ratings and examination performance; Ss sufficiently external in their perceived locus of control orientation and in low participation conditions gave higher ratings of teacher skill for high versus low structure. Ss low in internality perceived low structure conditions as more difficult than high structure conditions. Ss low in anxiety potential rated the high participation, low structure condition more favorable in terms of teacher affect, teacher skill, and overall; as opposed to Ss in the low participation, low structure condition. Findings were generally consistent with previous findings with normally hearing subjects and with the concept of trait-by-treatment task interactions. Appendixes contain sample data collection instruments, and tables and graphs illustrating statistical data. (SW)