Chapter 5 Nonverbal Communication in Teaching - CiteSeerX

Chapter 5

Nonverbal Communication in Teaching

ANITA E. WOOLFOLK Rutgers State University of New York

and DOUGLAS M. BROOKS

The University of Texas at Arlington

Research in many settings outside the classroom has indicated that nonverbal communication can serve a wide range of functions in human interaction. These include: (1) supplementing, reinforcing, or regulating verbal exchanges (Ekman & Friesen, 1969); (2) revealing emotional states or personality traits (Ekman & Friesen, 1975; Exline, Ellyson, & Long, 1975; Scherer, 1974); (3) providing cues for impression formation (Imada & Hakel, 1977; Wexley, Fugita, & Malone, 1975); (4) indicating liking or disliking for individuals, situations, or ideas (Mehrabian, 1972); (5) communicating relative status of interactants (Henley, 1977; Mehrabian, 1972); (6) being persuasive (Albert & Dabbs, 1970; McGinley, LeFevre, & McGinley, 1975); and (7) influencing the performance of others (Imada & Hakel, 1977; Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974). (A more complete discussion of the many possible functions of nonverbal behavior can be found in LaFrance & Mayo, 1978.)

It is likely that nonverbal communication functions similarly in the classroom. In fact, many educators have presented cogent arguments for the importance of nonverbal communication in teaching (e.g., Beebe, 1981; Galloway, 1972; Grant & Hennings, 1971; Richey & Richey, 1978; Wolfgang, 1977). However, until quite recently, educational researchers have neglected the systematic study of this topic. The research that has been carried out consists predominantly of scattered, isolated studies without a common theoretical basis. This lack of internal coherence in previous research on nonverbal communication in teaching probably has been

The authors are indebted to John Bates, Courtney Cazden, Robert Feldman, Russell French, Michael E. Kaye, Jane Stallings, Aaron Wolfgang and the editorial consultant for this chapter, Howard A. Smith, for their constructive criticisms of this manuscript.

103

at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on September 15, 2016http://rre.aera.netDownloaded from

http://rre.aera.net

104 Review of Research in Education, 10

unavoidable, given the immaturity of the discipline. Braroe (1976), writing about the study of nonverbal communication in anthropology, described that field as follows:

Starting with contrary assumptions, working with numerous methodological techniques, testing hypotheses linked together by no clear theoretical line, investigators produce findings which are short on internal coherence. Perhaps this is a necessary condition of any immature enterprise, especially an interdisciplinary one, that it flounders in achieving a sense of direction. (p. 866)

These same comments could be made today about the study of nonverbal communication in teaching. Investigators working with idiosyncratic methodologies and without common theoretical foundations have produced results that frequently defy replication and are difficult to translate into prescriptive recommendations for teachers.

In his recent review Smith (1979b) suggests the process-product paradigm (Dunkin & Biddle, 1974) as a theoretical framework that could bring much needed coherence to future research on nonverbal communication in teaching. Using this paradigm to study other phenomena, educational researchers have been able to identify significant relationships between the classroom behaviors of teachers and students and such student outcomes as academic achievement and attitudes toward school (Good, 1979; Brophy, Note 1; Rosenshine, Note 2).

This review (a) specifies questions and variables that will be useful in conducting research on nonverbal communication in the classroom within the process-product paradigm, (b) identifies methodological problems that have impeded the progress of investigation and suggests possible solutions, and (c) examines the theoretical assumptions of the process-product model as they apply to research on nonverbal communication and suggests a complementary model for guiding research.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION: DEFINITIONS, CATEGORIES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In any review of research on nonverbal communication the selection of the studies presented is influenced by the reviewer's definition of the phenomenon itself. For some investigators (e.g., Galloway, 1972; Wiener, Devoe, Rubinow, & Geller, 1972), nonverbal communication involves a shared code, a sender who intentionally sends a message using that code, and a receiver who consciously decodes or interprets the message, while nonverbal behavior is the term used to denote the broader category of all behavioral or physiological responses other than words.

Smith (1979b) provides a thorough discussion of the definitions that have been offered for terms such as behavior, communication, talk, language,


http://rre.aera.net

Woolfolk & Brooks: Nonverbal Communication 105

interaction, speech, information, sign and signal. In considering the communication-behavior distinction, he states that "a majority of writers seem to favor equating the two expressions" (p. 636). This is our decision as well. We assume that nonverbal communication does not require intentional sending or conscious receiving. Almost all nonverbal behaviors are potentially communicative because those who witness the behaviors can and do make inferences based on their observations. Furthermore, individuals often systematically vary their nonverbal behavior in response to different situations or people without being fully aware of these behavioral variations. Our position is summarized in the definition given by Siegman and Feldstein (1978): "Nonverbal communication, then, could include all nonverbal behaviors that are involved in the transmission of experience or information from one person to another" (p. 5). Thus the terms nonverbal behavior and nonverbal communication will be used interchangeably throughout this review.

This definition can include a wide range of phenomena. Under the label nonverbal communication, researchers have studied "proxemics" (space and distance as used by humans), "coverbal behavior" (gesture, facial expression, and eye gaze), "paralanguage" (behaviors accompanying speech such as voice tone, pitch, speech rate and length, errors, etc.), appearance (attractiveness, grooming, and dress), the use of time, the arrangement of the physical environment, the use of materials, dance, and mime. The three areas of proxemics, coverbal behavior, and paralanguage, however, are included in almost all conceptualizations of nonverbal communication. These will be the categories of nonverbal behavior examined here. Thus we will necessarily limit our attention to studies in which the source of the nonverbal message is the actual behavior of a person, and will exclude studies of messages inferred from the person's use of materials, artifacts, environmental arrangements, or dress.

Smith (1979b) presented a cogent argument for adopting the process-product paradigm in educational research on nonverbal communication. Results of previous research on proxemic, coverbal, and paralinguistic behavior in teaching suggest four major research questions that are appropriate for study within this process-product model: (a) How do teachers use the nonverbal behavior of their students to form impressions, expectations, and attitudes? (b) How do teachers reveal these expectations and attitudes in their own nonverbal behavior? (c) How do students interpret variations in their teacher's nonverbal behaviors? (d) What is the role of nonverbal communication in instruction and class management?

The research presented here will be organized by these four questions. We rejected the traditional system of grouping studies primarily by type of behavior (proxemic, paralinguistic, etc.) because educational researchers, especially those using the process-product approach, are seldom interested


http://rre.aera.net


in studying simple, highly specific nonverbal behaviors such as teacher smiles. Instead they are interested in more complex patterns of teacher or student behavior and the relations of these patterns to various aspects of classroom life.

In organizing this review by research questions we intend to identify the nonverbal behaviors that are probably involved in several significant teacher-pupil relationships. Although existing research on nonverbal communication in the classroom has not been systematic, the results of these studies do provide direction in identifying the most promising variables and methods for answering questions of interest to both researchers and practitioners.

RESEARCH ON NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION IN TEACHING

These research questions are not only appropriate for a process-product analysis of nonverbal behavior in teaching, but also are derived from a conceptualization of teacher influence that is implicit in much of the research on nonverbal communication. Within this view it is assumed that teachers form impressions and expectations about students based on many sources of information, including the students' nonverbal behavior. (See Braun, 1976, for a discussion of the other types of information teachers use to form expectations.) Teachers' attitudes and expectations affect their behavior toward students, particularly their nonverbal behavior. Students "read" these messages and respond, sometimes without being fully aware of the impact of the teacher's nonverbal behavior on them. The same chain of events could occur as students influence their teachers through nonverbal messages (Noble & Nolan, 1976; Winne & Marx, 1977).

When described step by step, this process of nonverbal communication and influence seems simple and linear; however, communication is not this simple or tidy. Teachers and students are involved in an ongoing, reciprocal influence process or nonverbal behavior exchange. Rather than being unidirectional, the process is more likely a kind of negotiation in which both participants are simultaneously making judgments, communicating attitudes, and attempting to influence while being influenced themselves, with nonverbal cues playing a major role in the exchange. We have divided this ongoing communication into four stages in order to formulate questions that can guide and organize research in this area.

Student Nonverbal Behavior and Teacher Impressions

The question of how teachers use the nonverbal behavior of their students to form impressions, expectations, and attitudes is considered first, not because the information available on this topic is abundant, but because the question is a logical first step in investigating the model of teacher influence described above.


http://rre.aera.net


Proxemics. Over 10 years ago Sommer (1969) suggested that teachers make certain assumptions about students based on where the students choose to sit in the classroom: "The front rows contain the most interested students, those in the rear engage in illicit activities, students at the aisles are mainly concerned with quick departures, most absentees come from the rear quadrant most distant from the windows." (p. 111). While several of these notions have been tested empirically to determine if students do behave differently, depending on where they sit, few investigators have studied if and how teachers use interpersonal distances to form initial impressions of students.

One investigation that did address this issue was conducted by Brooks and Rogers (1981). In this study a dozen teachers were asked to nominate students to categories labeled accepted and rejected for the purpose of classroom observation. Of the 24 students in the rejected category, 18 were boys and 22 were seated in the rear one-third of the classroom. Of the 24 students nominated to the accepted category, only 4 were boys and 18 were seated in the front two-thirds of the classroom.

Because the students in the Brooks and Rogers study had been assigned their seats using various methods, and because they had occupied those seats for some time, it is difficult to determine how distance alone was related to the teacher's attitudes toward the students. Schwebel and Cherlin's research (1972) sheds some light on this question. These investigators found that teachers perceived pupils who were moved toward the front as being more attentive and likeable than those in the rear of the class. This study not only supports the notion that student proximity might be related to the teacher's initial impressions of students, but also indicates a possible causal relationship that cannot be assumed from the purely observational methodology of Brooks and Rogers (1981).

Pαrαlαnguαge. In general, this area has received little attention in educational research. One important exception is Seligman, Tucker, and Lambert's (1972) investigation of student voice quality. These researchers created stimulus materials depicting different students by manipulating appearance (photograph), speech quality (audio recordings of the reading of a standard passage), quality of written composition, and quality of drawings to determine the factors that influence teachers' impressions of students. Results indicated that the hypothetical students who were attractive and who had good voice quality were judged to be significantly more intelligent, enthusiastic, and academically successful than the students who were unattractive or had poor voice quality. This experimental investigation of paralinguistic differences and their possible effects on teachers suggests avenues for research in natural classroom settings.

Coverbαl behavior. The study by Bates (1976) is an example of a well-designed and carefully controlled investigation of the role of student


http://rre.aera.net


coverbal behavior in the formation of teacher impressions. The setting for this study was a simulated tutoring situation in a college laboratory, with male and female undergraduates as the subjects who taught a standard mathematics lesson to 11-year-old male confederate students (assistants in the experiment). The confederates were trained to give standard responses to the questions, answering correctly 75 percent of the time. In addition, confederates were trained to vary their nonverbal positivity by observing the adult's face 75 percent of the time and smiling frequently (positive condition), or by observing the adult's face only 25 percent of the time and not smiling at all (negative condition). Interactions in two different types of settings, informal rest period versus formal teaching period, were examined. Dependent measures were adult nonverbal positivity, voice tone, and written evaluation of the students. In addition, the students' nonverbal behavior was assessed to insure that the high/low positivity roles were adequately played and to allow for analysis of sequential reciprocal behavior between adult and child.

The high level of child nonverbal positivity produced significantly higher levels of adult nonverbal positivity and more favorable written evaluations of the child's intellectual and social skills than did the low level of child nonverbal positivity. In part, these effects depended on the task. Child positivity during rest periods produced more adult positivity on certain nonverbal measures, while adult positivity during teaching periods was evidenced on different nonverbal measures. The task context seemed to influence the nonverbal channel for the expression of positivity. We will discuss the results of the sequential analysis of reciprocal behaviors when we consider the question of how teachers reveal attitude through their nonverbal behavior.

A study by Maddox-McGinty (1979) involving four elementary school teachers and their students found results similar to those of the Bates (1976) study. Students who were ranked high on "teachability" by their instructors smiled significantly more often than students ranked low on "teachability."

Brooks and Rogers (1981), mentioned earlier, found that students in the rejected category not only differed in their proximity to teachers, but also in the amount of time that they actually looked at the teacher. Rejected students visually attended to the teacher as little as 30 percent of the time required by the teacher. Accepted students watched the teacher significantly more than rejected students, based on a comparison of the mean total number of minutes of visual attention for each group. Of course, as was already noted, the rejected students tended to be seated in the rear of the room, which may have made watching the teacher more difficult or less likely. Still, the role of student visual attention in teachers' formation of impressions and expectations deserves further study.

Conclusions. While other factors influence teachers' formation of


http://rre.aera.net


impressions and expectations about students (Braun, 1976), evidence suggests that student nonverbal behaviors can play a role in the process. Researchers interested in this phenomenon might examine the students' use of interpersonal distance, visual attention, smiles and frowns, as well as the voice quality of the student, to determine how these factors influence the teacher's initial impressions. Research in contexts outside the classroom suggests that affirmative head nods might also be a factor associated with positive impressions (Erickson, 1979; Rosenfeld, 1966). From the limited research presented here it seems that teachers form positive impressions about students who evidence the nonverbal behaviors usually associated with interest, involvement, approval, or liking. Recently, Halberstadt and Hall (1980) suggested that the child's sensitivity to nonverbal cues may influence the teacher's impressions about the child's cognitive ability. Thus both the student's nonverbal behaviors and his or her ability to "read" the nonverbal behaviors of others may help to shape the teacher's impressions.

Little research has been conducted on cultural differences in the expression of attentiveness and involvement, but the work of Darnell (1979), Erickson (1979), and McKessar and Thomas (1978) suggests that teachers who work with students from a cultural or racial group other than their own might misread the nonverbal cues of their students. The result could be an incorrect inference that the students are not listening or do not understand (Wolfgang, 1979, 1981). This mistaken conclusion might affect the expectations and attitudes the teacher forms about the students. In addition, if cultural differences in nonverbal communication lead teachers to see their students as insensitive to nonverbal cues, the work of Halberstadt and Hall (1980) suggests that lower evaluations of the students' cognitive abilities might follow. For a thoughtful discussion of the role of cultural differences in teachers' impressions of their students, see Shultz, Florio, and Erickson (1982).

Behavior patterns that are associated with particular ethnic groups or sexes should be examined as they affect teacher impressions. In studying these factors researchers might distinguish between nonverbal behaviors appearing to have the same meaning across cultures (Ekman, 1978) and behaviors that can vary in their meaning from one culture to another. This distinction becomes especially important when global ratings of meaning such as "positive" or "negative" serve as measures (Cazden, Note 3).

The Nonverbal Communication of Teacher Attitudes

For years, educators have been interested in teacher expectation effects (e.g., Braun, 1976; Brophy & Good, 1974; Cooper, 1979; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). Many studies have attempted to determine how teachers communicate their expectations to students. One aspect of the phenomenon appears to be that teachers create "a warmer socioemotional atmosphere for


http://rre.aera.net


brighter students" because "many nonverbal behaviors associated with positive emotional attraction are displayed by teachers most frequently in interactions with students believed to be bright" (Cooper, 1979, p. 393). Studies of teachers' proxemic, paralinguistic, and coverbal behaviors support this hypothesis.

Proxemics. Brooks and Wilson (1978) asked 12 teachers each to nominate four students subsequently labeled accepted, concerned, indifferent, or rejected. Classroom observers then recorded the distance between the teachers and each of these students when the teachers answered the students' questions. Results of the study point to subtle differences in the teachers' use of interpersonal distance during interactions with students. The average distance between the teachers and the "accepted," "concerned," and "indifferent" students during question answering was within what Hall (1966) has labeled the intimate and personal zones (0-3 feet). The rejected students were answered at a mean distance of 4 feet, 4 inches, well within the social-consultive zone as described by Hall. Interactions occurring within the social-consultive zone are assumed to be more formal and to convey less personal involvement and attraction.

Rist (1970) found evidence for a similar distancing of students that the teacher believed to be low in academic ability. In this case, a kindergarten teacher made the greater distance a systematic part of classroom life by seating the "low-ability" group at the table farthest from her desk and usual teaching area. This spatial arrangement continued throughout the entire year. Classroom observers reported that students at the "low-ability table" were so far away that they had difficulty hearing the teacher. While the sample in this study was limited, the results suggest avenues for future research.

Pαrαlαnguαge. Bates's (1976) study, described earlier, assessed the voice tone of the teacher in response to the students' high- and low-positive nonverbal behaviors. Results indicated that teachers formed more favorable impressions of students who evidenced positive nonverbal behaviors, as indicated by the teachers' written evaluations of the students. When speaking to the nonverbally positive students, the teachers used significantly more words and tended to speak in a more positive voice tone. Overall, female teachers were rated as having a significantly more positive voice tone than male teachers.

Coverbal behavior. Several researchers have studied teacher coverbal behavior in relation to various student characteristics. A common experimental method is the classroom analogue tutorial design in which the students are confederates and some aspects of their personal characteristics or behavior are systematically manipulated. Adults serving as teachers are videotaped, and their nonverbal behavior is later analyzed (Bates, 1976;


http://rre.aera.net


Chaikin, Sigler, & Derlega, 1974; Feldman, 1976, 1977; Feldman & Allen, 1974; Feldman & Donohoe, 1978).

The well-known study by Chaikin, Sigler, and Derlega (1974) is prototypic of research in this area. In this study the subjects (undergraduate males and females) were told they would be tutoring a 10-year-old male student who had been selected randomly from a local elementary school. In actuality the student was one of two confederates, trained to behave consistently across all subjects. Before the tutoring session began, the subjects were told that their tutee was either (a) "quite bright," (b) "somewhat slow," or that (c) no information was available about the student. Each subject taught the same standardized prepared lesson to the confederate.

Subjects were unknowingly videotaped using a split screen recording technique allowing simultaneous full body and facial close-up views. Analyses of the video recordings of the tutors' behavior indicated that the "bright" child received significantly more forward body lean, eye gaze, affirmative head nod, and smiles from the tutor. There were no differences in the tutors' nonverbal behavior toward the child described as "slow" and the child with no description at all. It appeared that the adults in the study did not become increasingly negative toward the "slow" student, but they did communicate significantly more positive nonverbal messages toward the "bright" student.

Chaikin and Derlega (1978) replicated their earlier study, but added race of student as a factor. They again found that the child labeled "bright" received more positive nonverbal behaviors, but this effect held only for the white confederates. The expectancy manipulation had no effect when the confederate was black. Overall, the white children were treated more positively nonverbally than were the black children. As in the first study by Chaikin and his colleagues (1974), the teacher/subjects in this latter investigation were white.

In a third experiment, Derlega, McAnulty, Strout, and Reavis (1980) studied the behavior of black tutors working with black or white confederates. In evaluating their tutee's abilities, the black tutors discounted the dull label for the black children, but accepted the bright label for both black and white children. The expectancy manipulation had no effect on the tutor's behavior toward the black children, but did influence behavior toward whites.

In a study with a similar format, Kurtz, Harrison, Neisworth, and Jones (1977) found that undergraduate tutors leaned toward students more frequently while reading a story to them when the tutors had been told that their students were mentally retarded. In fact, the children serving as students were all normal preschoolers with no diagnosis or record of mental retardation. It is impossible to determine from the results of the study


http://rre.aera.net


whether body leans functioned to "leak" attitudes or were intended by the tutors to help keep their "retarded" students' attention focused on the story. No significant differences were found in the other nonverbal behaviors assessed.

Feldman conducted a series of studies using methodologies similar to that of Chaikin and his colleagues. In one investigation (Feldman, 1977) black and white female college students taught a standard lesson to a black or white third-grade male student. (Again, these tutees were confederates, trained to behave consistently across all teachers.) The "teacher" presented a brief standardized lesson, then asked 14 questions. The "student" responded correctly to 12 of the questions and the teacher was required to say "right—that's good" after each correct response. The nonverbal behavior evidenced by the teacher while saying "right—that's good" was recorded by a concealed videotape camera.

Both black and white judges viewed randomly edited samples of the nonverbal behavior of all subjects. The white judges perceived the white teachers as significantly more pleased with the white student. However, the black judges perceived the black teachers as significantly more pleased with the black students. It appeared that teachers exhibited more positive nonverbal behavior to students of their own race, but the difference was detectable only to another person of the same race. Similar results were found by London (1977) in a natural classroom setting.

In a later study based on the laboratory tutoring method, Feldman and Donohoe (1978) found that high-prejudiced white tutors nonverbally discriminated between black and white students, in favor of the whites, significantly more than did low-prejudiced tutors. Thus, as we would expect, individual differences probably play a role in determining how people will react nonverbally to members of various ethnic groups.

A third study by Feldman (1976) examining differential teacher nonverbal behavior is more removed from actual classroom experience than those described thus far. In this study of liking, lying, and nonverbal behavior, college students played the roles of teacher and confederate/learner. Teachers who liked their students exhibited more positive nonverbal behavior (were seen by judges viewing a videotape as more "pleased" nonverbally) than teachers who disliked their students. Lying on the part of the teacher resulted in her being perceived as significantly "less pleased." Finally, when teachers were not visible to their students, they evidenced more negative nonverbal behavior, indicating that individuals can control their nonverbal messages to some extent in face-to-face encounters with others.

Two studies, Feldman and Allen (1974) and Bates (1976), examined the effects on teacher coverbal behavior of variations in actual student behavior. Again, a classroom analogue, one-to-one teaching situation was used, and


http://rre.aera.net


the "students" were really confederates trained to vary their behavior systematically.

In Feldman and Allen's study (1974), data analysis indicated that the teacher's nonverbal behavior was affected by tutee performance. When tutees were performing poorly, teachers exhibited a significantly greater proportion of pursed lips, head shaking, forward body lean, reaching toward tutee, fidgeting, exhibited less head nodding, and sat more erect than when confederates performed well. In addition, teachers looked at confederates who were doing poorly a greater proportion of the time.

Results of this study indicate the importance of context in assessing nonverbal behavior. While it may seem surprising that confederates who were doing poorly received more "positive" behaviors (forward body lean, reaching toward confederate, eye gaze), the nature of the task could have made such results more likely as subjects often leaned or reached toward confederates to correct or explain a wrong answer. When simple frequency counts of behaviors are made and the context (e.g., correcting a wrong answer) is not taken into account, results of data analyses may be hard to interpret. One reason for this could be that the various functions of the nonverbal behaviors being coded are not considered. Forward body lean could be indicative of positive affect or it might be part of an attempt to direct activity or regulate an interaction, as, for example, when the body lean accompanies pointing toward lesson materials.

As described earlier, the design of the Bates (1976) study was similar to that of the Feldman and Allen (1974) study. Bates found that students who were nonverbally positive and were more favorably evaluated by their teacher tended to receive more positive facial expressions from their teachers. In addition, sequential analyses of the reciprocal behaviors between teacher and student indicated that the students' positive facial expression was generally reciprocated by the teacher in both the high- and low-positive conditions. In other words, confederates who seldom smiled or looked at their teachers and confederates who frequently did both were equally likely to receive a smile from the teachers in return for one of their own. When confederates in the low-positive condition finally did smile, their teachers tended to smile back.

Several studies have attempted to assess many teacher nonverbal behaviors simultaneously, usually by coding videotapes or through live classroom observation. Because these studies cannot be divided meaningfully into proxemic, paralinguistic, or coverbal categories, we will discuss them under the heading multiple behaviors.

Multiple behaviors. Achilles and French (1977) summarized a large group of studies in which the experimenters used the same observation instrument and similar methodologies to assess the nonverbal behavior of teachers toward various types of students. The instrument was the IDER system


http://rre.aera.net


(French & Galloway, Note 4), a modification of the Flanders System of Interaction Analysis designed to allow identification of encouraging (E) and restricting (R) nonverbal teacher behaviors. An E/R ratio greater than 1.00 is associated with a teacher who is more nonverbally encouraging than restricting.

Comparing the results of the IDER studies, Achilles and French (1977) concluded that: (1) atypical students, specifically delinquents (Crump, 1974) and gifted students (Cosper, 1971), received more nonverbal encouragement from their teachers than regular elementary and secondary school students received from their teachers (Fowler, 1972; Shepard, 1971); (2) teachers displayed significantly more encouraging nonverbal behaviors toward elementary and secondary pupils than toward adults (Fowler, 1972); (3) experienced teachers were significantly more nonverbally encouraging of upper-class students than of middle-class or lower-class students. Beginning teachers were significantly more nonverbally encouraging of lower-class students. Male teachers as a group, were more encouraging of upper-class students, while female teachers, as a group, were more encouraging of lower-class students (Shepard, 1971); (4) female teachers of fifth- and sixth-grade gifted students exhibited significantly more encouraging than restricting cues toward both male and female students, but tended to be more restrictive toward females than toward males (Cosper, 1971).

A fifth study by Parsons (1973) used the IDER system to assess the behavior of student teachers. Surprisingly, Parsons found no significant differences in teacher verbal or nonverbal behavior directed toward high-versus low-ability students, although high-ability students received fewer restricting nonverbal behaviors. In addition, teacher expectations for student success or failure had no impact on teacher verbal or nonverbal behavior as measured by the IDER system. That the subjects were not experienced teachers might have played a role in these results. It is also possible that differences did, in fact, exist, but were too subtle to be detected by the instrument used. Similarly, using the IDER observation system, Davis, Dobson, and Sheldon (1973) found no difference in the quality or quantity of the nonverbal behaviors of two groups of first-grade teachers, one working in low socioeconomic schools (Title I) and the other group working in middle-class schools. In addition, congruence between verbal and nonverbal behavior on the IDER coding system was not related to expressed philosophy of human nature for the 157 elementary school teachers studied by Dobson, Sewell, and Sheldon (1974).

Results of the IDER studies point to variations in teacher nonverbal behavior directed toward different groups of students within the natural classroom setting. In interpreting these findings, however, it is difficult to know whether the differences in teacher nonverbal behavior are indicative of different attitudes toward the student groups or are simply responses to


http://rre.aera.net


different situational demands, student actions, lesson contents, or other variations in the learning environment. Perhaps being more nonverbally encouraging of delinquents and gifted children than of "typical" children is an effective teaching strategy. Perhaps people who choose to teach these groups tend to be more nonverbally encouraging individuals. Perhaps the students, through their actions, elicit these behaviors differentially from their teachers. Because only the behavior of the teacher was observed, we do not know the role of the student in the behavior exchange, nor do we know how teachers varied their behavior toward individual students. The findings of Bates (1976) indicate the powerful effects that student nonverbal communication and the tendency to reciprocate behaviors can have on the actions of teachers.

Lyons (1977) used a more objective low-inference, time-sampling system to code the nonverbal behavior of a teacher working in a highly individualized program with 12 educationally handicapped male students. Every 10 seconds during the observation periods two classroom observers tallied the nonverbal behavior(s) the teacher was displaying toward the pupil involved in the interaction and the distance between the pair. Nonverbal behaviors tallied were (a) eye contact; (b) mouth expression (e.g., smile or frown); (c) head movement (e.g., shake or nod); and (d) physical contact or touching. Each behavior was rated as being either positive, negative, or neutral.

Data analyses indicated that the teacher evidenced significantly more negative nonverbal behaviors (frowns, head shakes, glares, restraining touches) toward boys that she had rated low on social personal attributes. The lower rated boys were also less preferred by the teacher. However, both groups received comparable numbers of positive nonverbal behaviors (smiles, nods, pats).

Problems with the study, noted by the author herself, are nonrandom selections of teacher and class, difficulties in simultaneous and rapid coding of multiple nonverbal behaviors, less than ideal interrater agreement, and the highly specific subject sample. However, the time-sampling method and category system seem promising, especially if used to code carefully recorded videotapes instead of the rapidly occurring and irretrievable events in a live classroom.

Conclusions. The studies discussed in this section, while addressing similar questions, differ substantially in methodology. The investigations by Chaikin et al. (1974), Chaikin and Derlega (1978), Bates (1976), Feldman and Allen (1974), and Feldman (1976, 1977) employed undergraduates as teacher/subjects while the learners were confederates, trained to behave in certain ways. Kurtz et al. (1977) studied undergraduates as subjects but did not control the behavior of the preschool children who served as confederates. The IDER studies focused on actual teachers in existing


http://rre.aera.net


classrooms as did the work of Brooks and Wilson (1978) and Rist (1970). The methods for measuring nonverbal behavior also varied across the studies. While some investigators (Bates, 1976; Brooks & Wilson, 1978; Chaikin et al., 1974; Feldman & Allen, 1974; Kurtz et al., 1977) assessed highly specific behaviors such as forward body lean, others made more global judgments about how nonverbally "encouraging" (Achilles & French, 1977) or "pleased" (Feldman, 1976, 1977; Feldman & Donohoe, 1978) the teacher appeared.

Results of the studies conducted in laboratory tutoring situations and those based on live classroom interactions indicate that teachers may respond to different types of students with different nonverbal behaviors. When specific nonverbal behaviors such as forward body lean and smiles were assessed, tutors were more positive nonverbally toward students that they assumed to be bright (Chaikin et al., 1974) and mentally retarded (Kurtz et al., 1977). While these results seem contradictory, the differences might be explained by variation in the designs of the two studies or by differences in the actual behavior of the confederates involved. It is also possible that the forward body lean observed in the two studies served two different functions, one to communicate positive evaluations of the students and the other to maintain their attention. An alternative explanation, supported by Achilles and French (1977), is that "atypical" students at both ends of the ability continuum receive more encouraging nonverbal communications from their teachers.

Using more global, high-inference measures, Feldman (1976; 1977) and London (1977) found that teachers were more nonverbally positive to students of their own race and to students that they liked. Nonverbal discrimination between black and white students was especially pronounced for high-prejudiced tutors (Feldman & Donohoe, 1978). While the IDER studies also demonstrate differences among teachers in their nonverbal communication to different types of students, these differences are based on average ratings of teachers working with one type of students compared to the average ratings of other teachers working with other students. With some exceptions, these results will not help us understand how individual teachers might communicate differential attitudes and expectations to individual students, or subgroups of students, in their classrooms.

While the volume of evidence is far from great, it appears that teachers may use interpersonal distance, voice tone, facial expression, body lean, affirmative or negative head nod, and eye gaze to reveal attitudes about students. Several studies (e.g., Bates, 1976; Brooks & Wilson, 1978; Chaikin et al., 1974; Feldman, 1976; Lyons, 1977) included measures of the teachers'/subjects' attitudes or evaluations of their students. These studies indicate that the teachers discriminated between groups of students both in their evaluations of the students and in their nonverbal behavior toward


http://rre.aera.net


them. The assertion that the differing teacher attitudes caused the differing teacher nonverbal behaviors remains a hypothesis, if a highly plausible one. The next logical question is, do real students involved in similar interactions with their teachers perceive and interpret variations in their teachers' nonverbal behaviors in the same way that adult researchers and videotape coders perceive and interpret these nonverbal variations?

Student Perception of Teacher Nonverbal Behavior

How do students interpret the nonverbal behaviors of their teachers? Will a teacher who appears "encouraging" or "pleased" to an adult coding the teachers' behavior seem the same to a 7- or 14-year-old? If teacher nonverbal behaviors indicate attitudes, do they also communicate these attitudes to students?

Proxemics. With elementary school students as subjects, Chaikin et al. (1978) tested the effects of "close" versus "distant" teaching styles on student perception and learning. The researchers used a tutoring format in which one female confederate teacher manipulated her eye contact, forward body lean, head nods, and smiles while teaching a lesson on psychology. Students who experienced the close teaching style perceived the teacher to be significantly more friendly and understanding. The close teaching style also led to significantly higher ratings on questions about how much the teacher liked children, liked the child individually, and enjoyed being close to him or her. Students preferred the close teacher and thought she was a significantly better instructor. Of course, in this study, the close versus distant dimension was defined by coverbal as well as proxemic teacher behaviors.

In an observational study of teacher proximity, use of space, and student perception, Hesler (1972) found that students perceived college teachers who spent more time sitting on, behind, or beside their desks as less warm, friendly, and effective than teachers who spent more time away from the desk. A significant positive relationship was found between the teachers' spending time in front of the desk and the students' feeling that they were part of a class unit. Furthermore, teacher time spent among the students was positively related to students' ratings of teacher warmth, friendliness, and effectiveness.

Individual student differences appear to influence how teacher distances are perceived. Rubin (1973) found that low-ability elementary school students preferred having the teacher among them, while high-ability students preferred circle or horseshoe seating arrangements. Norton and Dobson (1976) found that young male students perceived distant teacher behaviors more positively than female students, and this difference increased with age. Finally, high school students watching videotaped vignettes of teachers working with individual students perceived very close


http://rre.aera.net


teacher behaviors as significantly more acceptable when the female teacher was working with female rather than male students (Fredrickson & Ertel, 1977).

The results of these few studies indicate that students tend to see close teacher behaviors as indicating friendliness, warmth, approval, and liking. However, when students reach high school the meaning of very close behaviors appears to change.

Pαrαlαnguαge. In one of the few studies of the effects of teacher paralanguage, Karr and Beatty (1979) found that student perception of teacher credibility was at least partially influenced by the degree of consistency between the verbal message and the teachers' paralinguistic cues. Other studies, to be discussed in a later section, have examined paralanguage among the factors influencing student perception.

Coverbαl behavior. Gafner (1977) attempted to identify the specific nonverbal cues that students use to make judgments about teacher warmth. Subjects were 75 high school students who viewed a 10-minute videotape of a teacher in one of three conditions: nonverbal cue only (picture-no sound); verbal and vocal cue (sound-no picture); and combined picture-sound. Subjects completed a scale for 19 bipolar adjectives related to warmth. In addition, 15 students were interviewed in depth to determine which cues they had used to make decisions about the teachers in the videotape. Gafner concluded that students primarily used nonverbal cues to make judgments about teacher warmth, but this conclusion seems somewhat unwarranted because all conditions contained nonverbal cues (paralinguistic cues accompanied the sound-only presentation), and no purely verbal (typescript) condition was available for comparison. In attempting to determine which channel provides the greatest information, it seems necessary to have a stimulus for which the level of the variable in question has been validated externally, or to use a statistical design that allows investigators to compute the proportion of variance contributed by each channel.

Kelly (1973) showed videotapes of 30 teachers to 879 students (grades seven, eight, and nine). Students rated their level of liking for the teacher and indicated the characteristics on which they based their judgments. The videotapes were also coded by observers using an instrument for assessing the frequency and duration of various nonverbal behaviors. Results of a stepwise regression analysis of the student affective response data and the data from the instrument for coding nonverbal behavior indicated that students liked better those teachers who smiled often and who held up books, and so forth, for the class to inspect.

In-depth interviewing of students (Gafner, 1977) and open-ended listing of teacher characteristics (Kelly, 1973) are excellent sources of hypotheses for future investigation. Great care must be taken in drawing firm conclusions from such methods of gathering data, however, because the


http://rre.aera.net

Wool folk & Brooks: Nonverbal Communication 119

interviewer could unintentionally lead the student to focus on particular nonverbal behaviors, and because students might easily be affected by behaviors outside their awareness (Dittman, 1972).

Several studies of student perception cannot be easily categorized as proxemic, paralinguistic, or coverbal because more than one type of teacher nonverbal behavior was investigated. As in the previous section, these will be considered studies of multiple behaviors.

Multiple behaviors. Studies in this category tend to be experimental rather than descriptive, and have used elementary and secondary school students (as opposed to college undergraduates) as subjects, thus allowing some generalizability to public school settings. All the studies discussed in this section systematically manipulated teacher nonverbal behavior, either via videotape or live presentation, and assessed student perceptions of the behaviors.

Goldberg and Mayerberg (1973) created three videotapes of a female teacher delivering a lesson on drawing. While the verbal content of the lesson remained constant, on each videotape the teacher displayed a different nonverbal behavior pattern—positive, neutral, and negative. The nonverbal behaviors defining the positive, neutral, or negative condition were established by Middleman (1972) and included appropriate variations in distance from camera; eye orientation; body orientation; facial expression; head nods; vocalizations; autokinetic movements; arm position asymmetry; leg position asymmetry; hand/finger nonfunctional movements; leg nonfunctional movements; flow of gesticulation; rocking movements; use of vocal segregates, halting speech, and speech disturbances; rate of facial activity; speech volume and rate; and intonation.

Second- and sixth-grade black and white subjects were randomly assigned to view one of the three videotapes and complete a 10-item semantic differential describing "The T.V. Teacher." Analysis of variance revealed a significant race-by-treatment-by-grade interaction. Black second graders perceived the neutral teacher most positively while white second graders and sixth graders of both races perceived the positive teachers most positively.

In a second study using videotapes of teachers as stimulus material, Wass (1973) varied both verbal and nonverbal messages in presentations to 307 third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Three channels of communication— verbal (content), vocal (tone of voice), and visual (facial expression, smile or frown)—were varied to be positive (friendly and praising), neutral (no evaluative content), or negative (unfriendly and blaming), thus producing 27 combinations of verbal, vocal, and visual content. Three different teachers enacted the messages. The students rated each message as "good," "bad," or "not good/not bad." Wass (1973) concluded that the verbal channel had the greatest effect, determining 80 percent of the variance in the


http://rre.aera.net


students' evaluation of the message, although the influence of the verbal channel decreased as the age of the subject increased. Variations in nonverbal behavior seemed to strengthen or weaken the verbal message.

Using videotapes to present variations in teacher nonverbal behavior has the advantage of allowing external validation of the content of these stimulus materials before they are shown to students. Such a validation procedure should include an assessment of intensity as well as direction (positive, negative, or neutral), because it is sometimes difficult to produce positive messages that are comparable in intensity to strong negative messages. In addition, in testing stimulus materials it has not been established that adults are the best judges to validate the content of nonverbal stimulus materials to be used with child subjects, but this is generally the method used (Woolfolk, 1981).

There is some question about the extent to which one can generalize from student perceptions of videotapes of teachers to student perceptions of teachers in the actual classroom. Chaikin et al. (1974) recommended that one strategy for studying the responses of students to variations in the nonverbal behavior of teachers would be to train teachers to simulate particular behaviors in tutorial or group settings, then assess the perceptions of students in response to these variations in nonverbal behavior. Several studies by Woolfolk and Woolfolk and their associates have used such an approach in an attempt to increase external validity while maintaining experimental control (Woolfolk, 1978; Woolfolk, Garlinsky, & Nicolich, 1977; Woolfolk & Woolfolk, 1974; Woolfolk, Woolfolk, & Garlinsky, 1977). To achieve maximum commonality with daily classroom experience, students participated in these studies in a vacant classroom of their school, instead of in a college laboratory.

In the Woolfolk method, specially trained teachers present four different combinations of positive and negative verbal and nonverbal evaluative communications during a vocabulary lesson to four different randomly determined groups of elementary school students. Teacher behavior is held constant during the lesson except for varying evaluative communications to the students. Following the last evaluation in each session, the teacher leaves the room, and the experimenter administers dependent measures designed to assess student perception of the teachers' attitudes and student attraction for the teacher.

Using only one female teacher and the procedures described, Woolfolk and Woolfolk (1974) found that both verbal content and nonverbal behavior had a significant impact on student perception of the teachers' positivity and attraction for her. In both cases, however, the verbal content accounted for a much greater proportion of the variance in student responses.

Woolfolk, Woolfolk, and Garlinsky (1977) employed the same method but added sex of teacher and student as independent variables. Subjects


http://rre.aera.net


were 126 sixth-grade students. Again, verbal content was found to significantly affect student perception of the teacher and student attraction for the teacher. Nonverbal behavior interacted with teacher gender such that female teachers were perceived significantly more positively and received significantly higher student attraction scores when they were nonverbally positive as opposed to negative. The nonverbal behavior of the male teachers did not affect student perception or attraction. Again, the verbal content of the message accounted for a much greater proportion of the variance in student responses.

The findings of Wass (1973), Woolfolk and Woolfolk (1974), and Woolfolk, Woolfolk, and Garlinsky (1977) are at variance with previous research in other settings in which the nonverbal behaviors carried a larger part of the meaning than the verbal content (e.g., Birdwhistell, 1970; Mehrabian, 1972). The many differences between these studies make comparisons difficult, but it is clear that no absolute statement should be made about which channel of communication has the greatest impact in all contexts and with all people. More interesting questions for research would be: Under what conditions do individuals attend to one channel over another? How is information from each channel processed and integrated? What are the mediating variables affecting perception and production of nonverbal behavior? Research in other contexts indicates that different channels of communication (face, body, or speech) play the dominant role depending on which characteristics of the person are being judged and the interpersonal situation (Ekman, Friesen, O'Sullivan, & Scherer, 1980).

Research on nonverbal communication in children indicates that there are developmental differences in the process of interpreting nonverbal behaviors. These findings have implications for the study of student perception.

Age differences in nonverbal communication. Buck (1977) suggests that between the ages of 4 and 6 in our culture, boys may learn to inhibit the overt expression of emotion and thus become less accurate communicators of affect, while the spontaneous nonverbal behavior of girls continues to accurately reflect their emotional states. In terms of decoding nonverbal communication, girls appear to be superior to boys as early as the preschool years (Hall, 1978,1979). Girls are able earlier than boys to use proximity and eye contact to accurately judge attraction between individuals (Post & Hetherington, 1974). In a study of the perception of teacher distances, Norton and Dobson (1976) not only found differences in perception between girls and boys, but also found that these differences increased with age.

Mayo and LaFrance (1978) suggest that the child's development is associated with:


http://rre.aera.net


a greater range in the nonverbal repertoire, greater integration and coordination of communications channels, and greater differentiation of nonverbal behavior according to social context, (p. 213)

Research tends to support these notions. Younger children are generally less accurate than older children in their ability to decode adult vocally expressed affect (Dimitrovsky, 1964; Rosenthal et al., 1979). The work of Odom and Lemond (1972) indicates that young children are able to successfully decode more nonverbally communicated emotions than they can accurately produce. In addition, young children are more accurate in judging the nonverbal behavior of familiar individuals (Abramovich, 1977). For reviews of the development of nonverbal communication competencies in children, see Feldman and White (in press) and Stewart, Cooper, and Friedley (Note 5).

Given these developmental differences between younger and older children, it seems likely that children differ from adults in their interpretation of nonverbal behaviors. Results of several studies suggest that such differences exist. Feldman and Allen (Note 6) found that third- and sixth-grade students were more accurate judges than adults of the nonverbal communication of other third and sixth graders. Furthermore, children appear to decode incongruent communications differently from adults (Bugental, Kaswan, & Love, 1970). While adults rely more on the nonverbal channels of facial expression and voice tone than on the words said to determine the meaning of incongruent communications, children tend to listen to the words and voice tone, but attend less to facial expressions to decipher incongruent communications. This tendency to focus on one or two dimensions to judge meaning may be related to cognitive development. Mayo and LaFrance (1978) suggest that young children are unable to integrate information from several channels because they are not yet able, in Piaget's terms, to "decentrate" or focus on several dimensions simultaneously to make a decision. As children develop they become more able to differentiate nonverbal communication and infer subtle differences in meaning (DePaulo & Rosenthal, 1978).

These differences among younger and older children and adults have implications for research on the communication of teacher attitudes. Researchers have often assumed that the behavior of teachers as perceived and mapped by the adult investigators is the behavior to which the child responds. The child may have a very different view of the adult's behavior, particularly when incongruent messages are involved. Nonverbal cues that have one meaning to the adult may have a very different meaning to the child or may be overlooked altogether, as indicated by the research of Clark and Creswell (1978).

Conclusions. Research on student perception of teacher nonverbal


http://rre.aera.net


behavior is somewhat limited. Studies tend to present brief exposures of unfamiliar teachers, often using videotape. Results of several investigations (e.g., Wass, 1973; Woolfolk & Woolfolk, 1974; Woolfolk, Woolfolk, & Garlinsky, 1977) indicate that words are more important than nonverbal communication in revealing the attitudes of an unfamiliar teacher during a brief encounter. But nonverbal behaviors also play a role, usually by modifying the verbal message. All these studies, however, have been conducted with elementary school students. We could well expect a greater impact for nonverbal behaviors with older students. One general conclusion supported by the studies cited in this section is that students prefer teachers who are nonverbally positive and perceive such teachers as warmer, friendlier, and more approving.

It is perhaps more interesting to consider what we do not know about this question rather than what we do know. We have little information about how students interpret the nonverbal behaviors of familiar teachers or how students infer the meaning of teacher behaviors addressed to the class as a whole, rather than to individual students. It is likely that students' individual differences affect how they perceive and inteφret the nonverbal behavior of their teachers. The topic of individual differences in nonverbal communication skills is now capturing the interest of many social psychologists (Rosenthal, 1979).

Nonverbal Communication and Teacher Influence

The final question to be considered is, "How do teachers use nonverbal behaviors in instruction and class management?" A recent review by Smith (1979a) examined the relationships between nonverbal aspects of teaching and student achievement identified in four large process-product studies (McDonald & Elias, 1976; Brophy & Evertson, Note 7; Soar, Note 8; Stallings & Kaskowitz, Note 9). While we will consider selectively the results of these large investigations, in this section we will focus on studies whose major emphasis is nonverbal communication.

Proxemics. Many researchers have examined student seating location, relating location to student achievement. These studies have been reviewed elsewhere (Brophy & Good, 1974; Smith, 1979b; Sommer, 1969,1974) and will not be examined at length here. In general, findings suggest that seating position in the classroom can affect the students' level of participation in class activities, with the greatest participation involving students seated in the front row and in the center desks of each row. While Sommer (1974) and Stires (1980) reported evidence suggesting a positive relationship between achievement and proximity to the teacher in fixed seating arrangements, other researchers have found no such relationship either in large classrooms (Levine, O'Neal, Garwood, & McDonald, 1980; Wulf, 1977) or in small groups (Chaikin et al., 1978; Williams 1978). A recent study by Millard and


http://rre.aera.net


Stimpson (1980) examined achievement, participation, and attitudes by systematically manipulating seating position in an undergraduate class. Results indicated that high achievers performed well no matter where they sat in the room, but proximity to the teacher was related to positive attitudes, interest, and participation in class.

It is likely that seating position interacts with student characteristics to influence student performance. For example, Koneya (1976) reported a triangle of participation similar to the front-and-center "action zone" described by Adams and Biddle (1970). But Koneya found that students who tended to be low or moderate verbalizers avoided seats in the "action zone." In addition, being seated in the center increased class participation for moderate- and high-verbalizing students, but did not affect students who tended to avoid participation. Being closer to the teacher appears to be related to greater student participation, at least for some students. However, once students are within a certain distance, there might be no advantage for increased closeness to the teacher. It simply could be that when students are seated beyond a certain distance day after day in a classroom, they have difficulty maintaining continuous (or relatively continuous) involvement in teacher-directed activities.

The results of research on seating position could be considered in relation to theories of proxemic behavior in anthropology. Hall (1966) demonstrated that predictable "action chains" or interactive events occur within culturally defined interpersonal distances. He further postulated that the established distances at which people find themselves determine the form and content of the interactions possible within those distances. Hall's ideas are in keeping with the reasons discussed by Brophy and Good (1974) for the recurring finding that seating position is related to class participation.

If, as Hall (1966) suggested, selected distances determine the form and content of interactions, then pupils seated closer to the teacher would receive a particular type of verbal interaction that is qualitatively different from verbal interaction received by pupils seated farther away. Brooks, Silvern, and Wooten (1978) reported evidence supporting this hypothesis. Examining the form and content of the teachers' verbal interaction with students who were seated in three different zones (representing increasing distances from the teacher) these researchers found that teachers exhibited a more permissive and interactive verbal style with students seated in the closest zone, while their verbal style with students seated in the two more distant zones involved more lecturing and one-way communication.

A second explanation for the consistent relationship between seating location and participation is that students seated closer to the teacher are more likely to behave in a manner that teachers value. For example, Breed and Colaiuta (1974) found that college students seated closer looked at the teacher more and wrote more. This type of visual attention and involvement


http://rre.aera.net


has been associated with positive teacher impressions of students, as was discussed in an earlier section of this review.

Pαrαlαnguαge. Although several studies of teacher influence have included paralanguage among the nonverbal behaviors investigated (e.g., Middleman, 1972; Woolfolk, 1978) only a limited number have examined paralanguage alone. One of the few exceptions is a study of teacher voice tone by Kashinsky and Wiener (1969), who found that varying the voice tone (positive, negative, or neutral) on audiotaped instructions for a task had no differential impact on middle-class 5-year-olds' performance on the task.

Lower-class children, however, performed significantly better when the instructor's voice tone was positive. More recent research with parents conducted by Bugental and her associates (Bugental, Henker, & Whalen, 1976; Bugental & Love, 1975) also found that the voice tone of adults was associated with the behavior of children. The results of these studies indicated that vocal assertiveness seemed to be an important factor in parents' ability to control the behavior of their children. These findings suggest that the teacher's vocal assertiveness (or lack thereof) might play a significant role in class management.

Coverbαl behavior. Using a format similar to Middleman (1972), Fried (1976) manipulated teacher facial expression (positive, negative, or neutral) during a videotaped lesson with fourth and fifth graders. Students in the positive facial expression condition scored significantly higher than students in the other two conditions on a test given 1 week after the lesson. Pretest scores and reading level were the covariates in the analysis. Fried also found several interactions among student sex, race, grade, and the experimental condition.

Breed (1971) tested various levels of eye contact during a live lecture in several experiments. He found that subtle differences in eye gaze had no significant impact on audience retention of lecture material, but more obvious differences (gaze vs. preferred, excluded, or no gaze) did significantly influence retention for female students in small groups. Large groups of male students were unaffected by gaze differences. However, in a study of primary school children, Otteson and Otteson (1980) found that teacher gaze during story reading improved recall for both boys and girls.

Multiple behaviors. In a descriptive study of the nonverbal behaviors of 43 teacher-interns in six elementary schools, Keith, Tornatzky, & Pettigrew (1974) found that smiling, verbally probing teachers are associated with thoughtful and verbally responsive pupils. Results of the study must be considered in light of two limitations. First, coding was done from videotapes of classroom interaction and only those pupils who were visible to the camera could be observed by the coders. Because the more involved students tend to sit closer to the teacher (Sommer, 1974), the behavior assessed by Keith et al. may not be representative of the students who were


http://rre.aera.net


"off camera." Second, data presented are correlational and reveal no information about the temporal sequence of the events. While it is possible that the students became increasingly responsive when teachers smiled more, it is also possible that teachers smiled more because students were more verbally responsive.

Several experimental studies have attempted to establish causal connections between teacher nonverbal behavior and student performance (Driscoll, 1979; Kaufman, 1976; Middleman, 1972; Woolfolk, 1978; Woolfolk, Garlinsky, & Nicolich, 1977) and recently between student nonverbal behavior and teacher performance (Feldman & Prohaska, 1979).

Woolfolk, Garlinsky, and Nicolich (1977), using the procedures described earlier to study the effects of teacher positive and negative verbal and nonverbal evaluative behavior, found that the verbal content of teachers' evaluative statements to the class as a whole had a significant impact on student willingness to self-disclose to the teacher. While teacher nonverbal behavior also influenced student willingness to self-disclose, interacting with student sex, the effect varied across individual teachers and no consistent pattern was evident.

Several studies have investigated student performance or learning on academic tasks as dependent variables. Woolfolk (1978) found that sixth-grade students wrote significantly more sentences during a vocabulary microlesson when the teacher was nonverbally negative. The optimal combination, in terms of student performance, was positive verbal statements delivered in a nonverbally negative manner. Student learning (pretest to posttest improvement in spelling) was not affected by variations in either teacher verbal or nonverbal behavior. The significant effect of negative nonverbal behavior on student performance is analogous to the finding of Bugental and her associates, described earlier, that vocal assertiveness seems to be important in parents' ability to control the behavior of their children.

Middleman (1972), using the design and materials employed by Goldberg and Mayerberg (1973), found that black, lower socioeconomic elementary school students were more productive on one of the three drawing tasks administered by a female teacher via videotape when the teacher was nonverbally negative. No difference was found on any task for white students across the three conditions of teacher nonverbal behavior (positive, neutral, or negative).

The findings of Woolfolk (1978) and Middleman (1972), although limited by the students' brief exposure to the teacher, suggest an area for further research. Beginning teachers are often advised to communicate confidence and authority to their students even if they do not feel particularly confident or authoritative. It is possible that assertive nonverbal behavior, particularly voice tone, is especially important in classroom management and is part of


http://rre.aera.net


the behavioral repertoire of the "firm, business-like" teacher who has been associated with increased student time-on-task in recent research (Rosen-shine, Note 10).

Kaufman (1976) identified a second type of effective teacher nonverbal behavior using college students as subjects. He found that students learned more and liked the instructor better when he or she was active nonverbally, using coverbal and paralinguistic behaviors considered to be more dramatic and interesting while giving a videotaped lecture. Driscoll (1979) found that lOth-grade students remembered significantly more information from a videotaped lesson when the instructor used eye contact (as compared to no eye contact), high rates of gesturing, and dynamic voice tone. Each factor alone led to significant improvement in retention and the combination of all three was more effective than having two, one, or none incorporated into the lesson. Little other research has been conducted on this topic with elementary and secondary students, though the findings of Kelly (1973) suggest that junior high school students prefer teachers who smile and gesture.

Few researchers have studied the immediate effects of student nonverbal behavior on teacher performance. In a recent study, Feldman and Prohaska (1979) demonstrated that students can affect the behavior of a teacher making a presentation. After establishing that students who expect that a teacher is competent behave nonverbally toward the teacher in a more positive fashion (more eye gaze, forward body lean, and more direct orientation), Feldman trained student confederates to manipulate their nonverbal behavior toward various teachers. When students were nonverbally positive, in terms of eye gaze, body lean, and body orientation, teachers were judged to be significantly more adequate in their presentation by naive observers. Feldman suggests that the students' nonverbal behavior actually could motivate behavior in the teacher congruent with the students' initial expectations. It appears that the "Pygmalion effect" can work both ways, teacher to student or student to teacher. Having the reputation as a "good" teacher may help an individual to perform more effectively or, more likely, having a reputation as "bad" may make effectiveness more difficult to achieve.

Conclusions. Studies in this section have examined the influence of teacher nonverbal behaviors on three different types of student outcomes: (a) affective responses, for example, willingness to self-disclose, (b) performance or following teacher instructions, and (c) student learning or retention of factual material. Only one study of affective outcomes was discussed here (Woolfolk, Garlinsky, & Nicolich, 1977). Further research, especially in real classrooms, is needed to determine if and how teacher nonverbal behaviors are related to such affective variables as student attitudes toward school, self-esteem, or appreciation for various subjects.


http://rre.aera.net


Information on the relationship between teacher nonverbal behaviors and student performance, while quite limited, does suggest that nonverbal assertiveness or firmness might be important in effective management (as veteran teachers have suggested for years). In relation to student learning, it appears that nonverbal behaviors that encourage student involvement and participation lead to increased learning. Thus, being seated beyond a certain distance from the instructor, or listening to an instructor who speaks in monotones, seldom looks at students, gestures, or smiles may cause students to drift in and out of attending to class activities (as veteran students have believed for years). The less time students spend engaged in academic activities the less they learn (Rosenshine, Note 10). Researchers interested in studying nonverbal communication or academic engaged time might examine the nonverbal teacher behaviors that encourage attention and focus.

One potentially interesting area of investigation that generally has been overlooked by educational researchers is the impact of teacher nonverbal behavior on student performance in one-to-one teaching settings. Findings from social psychology, particularly studies of interview situations indicate that individuals may perform less competently when they are confronted by negative nonverbal reactions from others (Keenan, 1976; Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974).

The studies presented in this review indicate that information is available about the role of nonverbal behaviors in the formation and communication of the teachers' attitudes and expectations as well as the impact of nonverbal behavior on student performance and learning. But many of the studies lack methodological consistency and a unifying theoretical rationale.

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Many of the problems involved in studying nonverbal communication in teaching result from difficulties in developing appropriate research methods. Such methods must take into account the importance of the context of interactions in defining meaning, must effectively deal with the wealth of information available, and must include measurement strategies that provide useful data.

The Importance of Context in Evaluating Nonverbal Behavior

Over the past several years educational researchers increasingly have stressed the importance of understanding the context in which behaviors occur. In describing the future of research on teaching, Brophy (1979) strongly emphasized the consideration of settings and situations within the classroom:


http://rre.aera.net


I foresee studies confined to specific classroom contexts, such as presenting new information in demonstration or lecture, conducting drill or recitation . . . these contexts seem sufficiently different from one another that combining data across them will probably mask orderly relations that might be discovered by studying them separately. In fact, it is likely that most research in teaching done to date has involved such masking, (p. 744)

The types of settings Brophy described have been called "situational frames" in anthropological research (e.g., Hall, 1966). Examples of situational frames in the classroom include giving instructions, answering student questions, responding to pupil disruptions, presenting a lecture or demonstration, leading a small group discussion, responding to students when they come to the desk, listening to a student read, giving unsolicited help, and responding to wrong or right answers.

Nonverbal expressive behaviors lack meaning until they are placed in a particular context. For example, the finding of a significantly greater number of forward body leans directed toward the students who were performing poorly in the Feldman and Allen (1974) study can best be understood when the situational frame (responding to a wrong answer) is considered. Bates' (1976) finding of different patterns of reciprocated adult positivity in different task settings also highlights the importance of context in studying nonverbal communication. Studies that produce specific insights into the expressive world of the classroom generally have focused on a definable interactive moment such as a morning greeting (Scott, 1977), classroom activities (Bremme & Erickson, 1977; Doyle, 1977), the teacher responding to pupil disruptions or questions (Huffine, Silvern, & Brooks, 1979), or pupil responses following the teacher's task instructions (Brooks, & Wagenhauser, 1980).

Many questions involving nonverbal communication in different contexts could be investigated. For example, is there a relationship between the number of times that students go to the teacher's desk for help and the nonverbal behavior of the teacher during the interactions at the desk? Do teachers who give instructions using an assertive voice tone have students who respond more quickly or require fewer reminders? When teachers give feedback about right and wrong answers, do they vary their nonverbal behavior depending on the race, ability, or sex of the student receiving the feedback? These and similar questions could be answered by focusing on interactions within specific situational frames in the classroom. Caputo (1980) provides a taxonomy for describing nonverbal behaviors in naturalistic settings based on the function of the behavior. Such a system might be helpful in studying interactions in particular situations.

Dealing Effectively with the Amount of Nonverbal Information

The information exchange in a dyadic interaction is so rapid and voluminous that even a film of the events replayed in slow motion requires


http://rre.aera.net


careful analysis by observers of the same culture as the interactants merely to record the action, much less to ascribe meaning and intent to the behaviors (Hall, 1972). Researchers studying nonverbal behavior must determine how they can best make sense of this wealth of information.

Focusing investigation. In studying nonverbal communication, it frequently is advisable to have videotape or film records so that interactions can be viewed repeatedly. A second possibility, often done in conjunction with videotaping, is to concentrate observation on only a few specific behaviors at a time, such as smiles, voice tone, or gestures (Keith et al., 1974). With more highly inferential methods researchers have used time-sampling techniques to categorize the teacher nonverbal behavior occurring within a specified time period (usually 3 to 10 seconds, depending on the system). For example, Heger's (1980) technique assigns the observed teacher behaviors to one of seven different categories, thus limiting the number of decisions the coders must make in each time interval. To structure observation even more, several investigators have concentrated solely on nonverbal behaviors occurring within a particular context, for example, during student-initiated questions (Brooks & Wilson, 1978).

When the study of nonverbal communication is moved into the laboratory it is possible to limit the range of nonverbal behaviors available for measurement by restricting the situation, holding many factors constant and allowing only those nonverbal behaviors of interest to vary. For example, in the Chaikin et al. (1974) and Bates (1976) studies, the subjects were seated, dealing with one student at a time, and using standard materials. Thus coverbal behaviors (generally upper body, arm, hand, or head movements, and facial expressions) and paralanguage were the main channels of expression available to subjects. The researchers could focus on nonverbal information from these sources. It is also possible to simplify the nonverbal communication process by programming the expression of particular behaviors, then analyzing the impact of these behaviors on other people, as was done in the studies by Woolfolk and her colleagues.

Instruments designed to record teacher-pupil verbal behavior exchange have attempted to transform the actual dialogue of the classroom through inferential recording by a trained observer (Medley, Schluck, & Ames 1968). The sheer volume and rate of nonverbal behavior exchange defies analysis with similar kinds of measures. Researchers must be willing to focus on a few expressive actions that are likely to be salient in the context being investigated (i.e., smiles toward selected pupils during pupil responses to teacher questions). Results of the studies discussed in this review should provide a pool of such expressive actions for further investigation. Limiting the number of nonverbal variables to be assessed is especially important when observers work in classrooms without the benefit of videotapes. If a permanent record is available, more variables can be studied.


http://rre.aera.net


Technical considerations. Recently, some technological advances have improved procedures for studying nonverbal communication. One system developed by researchers in the Dimensions of Instruction project at the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education, the University of Texas at Austin, allows observers viewing videotapes to code the nonverbal behaviors of teachers by entering the information directly into a computer connected to the videotape monitor. As each code is entered, the computer also registers the exact point on the videotape that corresponds to the code. Thus, reliability checks and measures of the duration of selected nonverbal behaviors can be accomplished easily (Gardner, Note 11).

While videotaping is an effective procedure for studying nonverbal communication, the tapes must be made with nonverbal assessment in mind. To study facial expression, a sharp close-up of faces is necessary. To study body leans a side view is best. Because the position of the camera greatly influences impressions of the distances between interactants and the intensity of facial expressions, camera angles and lens openings should be constant across situations or individuals to be compared.

To investigate teacher nonverbal behavior directed toward individual students, coders must know who is involved in each interaction. More than one camera may be needed to accurately record the nonverbal exchange between teacher and student. In some situations it might be possible to have an ethnographer in the classroom during the videotaping. The ethnographer could dictate a running commentary describing the events in the classroom, the individuals involved in the interactions, the likely intentions of the teacher in different activities, and the general emotional tone of each episode during the taping. This audio record would have to be synchronized with the videotape while both were being recorded. By synchronizing an ongoing live commentary with a permanent record, researchers could more easily determine the context and significance of behaviors, particularly behaviors that are infrequent but possibly important. Other techniques for creating permanent records of nonverbal behaviors include time-lapse photography (Walker & Adelman, 1971) and audiorecordings of content-filtered speech (Scherer, 1974).

Measuring Nonverbal Behaviors

Nonverbal communication occurs within a complex exchange, and the meaning of a particular behavior often depends on the behaviors preceding and following it, as well as the context in which the interaction takes place. Particular nonverbal behaviors can serve a wide range of functions. For example, smiles might communicate liking or could accompany a mocking, sarcastic, disdainful message. In addition, individuals often differ in the ways they indicate various emotions. For instance, one person may express


http://rre.aera.net


anxiety in a social situation by becoming rigid and "frozen," while another may become very active, engaging in repeated self-manipulative behaviors such as hair stroking (Woolfolk, Abrams, Abrams, & Wilson, 1979). It is impossible to establish unvarying and absolute meanings for all nonverbal behaviors. Despite this difficulty, decisions concerning measurement must be made and the conclusions reached in any study will be influenced greatly by these decisions about what, when, and how to measure.

Instruments. Nonverbal communication in teaching has been assessed with both high- and low-inference methods. High-inference systems allow investigators to make judgments about the meaning of the nonverbal behaviors and the impression created. This is helpful when researchers are studying attitudes or emotions such as anxiety that can be expressed in various ways. Low-inference measures have the advantage of allowing the investigator to identify the actual behaviors involved in significant relationships among classroom interaction variables. This knowledge can lead to experimental evaluation of the effects of different nonverbal behaviors in teaching, and finally to the development of instructional strategies.

In laboratory settings, high-inference, semantic differential and Likert-type scales have been used to assess how "pleased" the teacher seemed (Feldman, 1976, 1977; Feldman & Donohoe, 1978), how "warm" the teacher was (Gafner, 1977), how much the students liked the teacher (Woolfolk & Woolfolk, 1974; Woolfolk, Woolfolk, & Garlinsky, 1977), or how positive the teacher appeared (Goldberg & Mayerberg, 1973; Wass, 1973).

A second relatively high-inference strategy for assessing nonverbal communication involves classroom interaction analysis. For example, French and Galloway (Note 4) expanded the Flanders System of Interaction Analysis to include codes for teacher and student nonverbal behaviors. Like the Flanders system, the French and Galloway IDER method allows identification of indirect and direct teaching, but adds the assessment of encouraging, E, and restricting, R, nonverbal behaviors and the computation of an E/R ratio for each teacher. Heger (1980) developed an extension of the Flanders and French and Galloway techniques, the Miniaturized Total Interaction Analysis System, which directs observers to focus on student perception of verbal and nonverbal messages. The seven categories for coding interaction are (a) reinforcement by the teacher, (b) use of student's ideas, (c) content presentation by the teacher, (d) control of students, (e) student talk about content, (f) student talk about personal needs, and (g) silence or multiple talking. Also based on the Flanders approach is the Cheffers Adaptation of the Flanders Analysis System that codes teacher, student, and environmental sources of information (Cheffers, 1973).


http://rre.aera.net


Love and Roderick (1971) developed a 10-category system for coding teacher nonverbal behavior from a videotape or in a live teaching situation. Categories of this system include nonverbal praise, acceptance, direction, encouragement, ignoring, and others. Specific behavioral examples within each category are given but considerable inference is required to categorize a particular teacher behavior. To use the system the observer simply tallies each time the teacher evidences one of the categories of behavior nonverbally. Other methods focusing on nonverbal behavior include the Nonverbal Interaction Analysis System (Amidon, 1971), Grants' (1977) method for analyzing teacher moves, and Victoria's (1973) technique for categorizing teacher gestures as supportive, neutral, or unsupportive. Finally, several attempts have been made to use student perceptions of the teacher as a basis for developing observation instruments (e.g., Antonoplos, 1979; Whitfield & Galloway, 1979).

The observation methods of French and Galloway, Heger, Cheffers, Love and Roderick, and the others described above require the coder to categorize samples of teacher nonverbal behavior as encouraging, accepting, restricting, unsupportive, and so on. These systems assume that the adult coder's perception is analogous to the students' perceptions; that is, behavior that the observers see as encouraging is assumed to be encouraging to the students being observed. As we discussed earlier, such an assumption may not be warranted. In addition, the limited number of codes available to observers often restricts description. In categorizing nonverbal behaviors as either encouraging or restricting, for example, researchers are not able to capture incongruities between verbal and nonverbal behaviors or other subtle aspects of nonverbal communication. Still, these approaches do allow investigators to take many factors, including the context of the message, into account in categorizing nonverbal behaviors. The ecological validity of the measurements is apt to be greater because the various nonverbal behaviors and patterns are studies as they occur naturally in classrooms. For a critique of the major evaluative instruments available to investigate nonverbal communication in classrooms, see Lewis-Smith (1978).

An alternative to these high-inference methods is to measure the frequency or duration of specific behaviors without regard to their meaning or function. Keith et al. (1974) used this approach to devise a low-inference coding system with 57 types of learner and teacher verbal and nonverbal behaviors such as smiles, head orientation, and posture. Civikly (1974) devised a similar strategy for observing specific behaviors that allows observers to record the sequence of behaviors and thus identify patterns and clusters of nonverbal behavior. In addition, observers complete semantic differentials after coding to provide more global impressions of the classroom interactions.


http://rre.aera.net


Other methods, particularly those used in laboratory settings, focus on fewer behaviors than the techniques of Keith and Civikly. For example, several researchers have measured forward body lean with the aid of a grid superimposed on the video monitor (Kurtz et al., 1977). Others have assessed voice tone by creating content-filtered audio recordings (Bates, 1976). (Researchers interested in employing low-inference methods to assess facial expression or hand movements should consult Ekman and Friesen, 1976, or Friesen, Ekman & Wallbott, 1979, for reviews of various methods.)

Because both high- and low-inference techniques have disadvantages as well as advantages, it would seem appropriate to use both in attempting to answer questions about the role of nonverbal communication in teaching. Lewis-Smith (1978) suggests employing multidimensional measurement instruments to gather data about the nonverbal and verbal behavior of individual students and their teachers and about the class, school, and community environment.

Most systems for measuring nonverbal behavior in classrooms, whether high- or low-inference methods, count each event as equally meaningful in the overall tally, fail to take into account the actual perceptions of the students, and do not allow for the identification of sequences of behaviors. Recent developments in interaction analysis in psychotherapy research may provide methods that avoid these three pitfalls.

Gottman, Markman, and Notarius (1977) devised a technique that uses lag sequential analysis (Gottman & Notarius, 1978; Sackett, Note 12) to identify patterns of nonverbal interaction between husbands and wives in distressed and nondistressed marriages. Working from verbatim transcripts of videotapes and the tapes themselves, coders assess the verbal "content" of the message, the nonverbal delivery of the "affect," and the nonverbal behaviors of the listener (called the "context" of the message by Gottman et al.). Thus, researchers can describe the function of the message in terms of the response it elicits, note how the message was delivered, and in what interpersonal context the message occurred. Taking this approach Gottman determined, for example, that distressed couples are significantly more likely to express verbal agreement (content) with accompanying negative nonverbal behaviors (affect). A modification of this method could be used to assess the nonverbal behaviors of teachers as they praise or criticize highland low-ability students.

Peterson (1979) describes another approach to marital interaction analysis that might be applied to classroom research. His system would be especially helpful in studying the actual perceptions of the participants. Using this system the individuals involved in the interactions keep a journal describing (a) the most important interaction of the day, each from his or her own viewpoint, (b) the conditions of the interaction (where and when it


http://rre.aera.net


happened, how each participant seemed to be feeling at the beginning), (c) how the incident began, who made the first move, (d) the step-by-step details of what happened next including what each participant seemed to be feeling.

Analyses of these interaction records indicated that almost all reported communications fell into one of three categories. Messages reported affect (how the individuals felt), construal (explanations or beliefs about the situation such as who was at fault or whether the other person really understood the issue), or expectations about the subsequent response of the other participant. While the raw data were in verbal form, many nonverbal behaviors were perceived by the participants and recorded in their journals. Using this technique along with videotaping, researchers could better understand how both the teacher and the students viewed a particular incident, what features of the situation were salient to each person, and how nonverbal information was integrated with verbal information to shape affect, construals, and expectations.

No matter what type of instrument or coding system is employed, research on nonverbal communication may require special precautions when observers, especially naive observers, collect data. Recent research indicates that individuals vary significantly in their nonverbal decoding skills. A brief review of these findings and their implications for research on nonverbal communication can be found in Woolfolk (1981).

Units of analysis. Studies of teacher verbal behavior have concluded that teachers with particular verbal styles toward the class tend to produce pupil gains in achievement (Flanders, 1970). The unit of analysis in studies of verbal behavior has been the class. It has not been possible from these investigations to determine how teacher behavior affects individual students. Studies of nonverbal teacher behavior often have followed the same path. Observation methods such as the IDER (French & Galloway, Note 4) or the Love and Roderick (1971) system provide information about how the teacher's nonverbal style is related to class outcomes or characteristics. An alternative approach is to study teacher nonverbal behavior directed toward particular categories of students such as accepted/rejected (Silberman, 1969), high ability/low ability, black/white, or male/female. For examples of this approach in the IDER studies, see Crump (1974) and London (1977). Studies of this type would tell us more about how teachers communicate attitudes and influence individual students. (See Brophy, 1975, for a discussion of the advantages of using the student as the unit of analysis.)

THEORETICAL ISSUES

While the lack of internal coherence in the research on nonverbal communication in teaching can be traced, in part, to methodological


http://rre.aera.net


problems, other factors have restricted progress in this area. A major source of difficulty is the absence of a well-articulated theoretical framework for studying nonverbal communication in teaching.

The Process-Product Paradigm

Smith (1979b) proposed the process-product paradigm as a format for classroom research on nonverbal communication in teaching. This could be accomplished by using variations of the observation instruments described in this review, preferably in combination with multiple measures of teacher and pupil perceptions and nonverbal behaviors. In addition, nonverbal items could be incorporated into existing observational systems.

The external variable research strategy. Studies within the process-product paradigm generally have been designed based on the assumption of unidirectional influence. The notion in such studies is that teacher behaviors and teacher-student interactions influence the student behaviors that lead to learning (McDonald & Elias, 1976). To study the role of nonverbal communication in the interactions assumed to be important within the process-product paradigm, researchers are likely to turn to the "external variable" research strategy. This is not the only possible approach, but it is a popular one. The external-variable strategy has been used to investigate the relationship between the rate of occurrence of nonverbal behaviors and other variables of interest such as the emotions of the sender or the judgments made by the perceiver. Ekman and Friesen (1968) and Harper, Wiens, and Matarazzo (1978) provide helpful discussions of the various methods of conducting external-variable research on nonverbal communication.

Generally, external variable methods are divided into two categories: The "indicative" category includes studies that examine the association between particular psychological states and the nonverbal behaviors indicating those states; the "communicative" category describes methods that investigate observer's ability to accurately interpret the nonverbal behaviors indicating various psychological states (Ekman & Friesen, 1968).

The research strategies described by Ekman and Friesen (1968) are most appropriate for studying the meaning of nonverbal behaviors. While educational researchers are interested in studying how teachers and students indicate feelings or opinions through their nonverbal behaviors and what information these nonverbal behaviors communicate to others, researchers are also interested in answering another question: How do students or teachers respond to nonverbal communication? Several investigations have examined how the nonverbal behavior of one classroom participant affects the actual performance of other participants (Feldman & Prohaska, 1979; Woolfolk, 1978; Woolfolk, Garlinsky, & Nicolich, 1977). Thus, studies of this type go beyond examining the inferred meaning of nonverbal behaviors


http://rre.aera.net


to examine their effects on the behavior of others. Studies examining such questions might be categorized "effective."

Most of the studies discussed in this review were based on external variable methods. In fact, the four research questions that organized the review reflect the indicative, communicative, and effective categories of external variable research and can be seen as applications of these methods to investigation within the process-product paradigm. The questions, "How do teachers use student nonverbal.behavior to form impressions?" and "How do students interpret teacher nonverbal behavior?" have been studied with "communicative" methods. The question concerning how teachers reveal or indicate their attitudes and expectations nonverbally is appropriate for research with "indicative" methods. The question about how teachers use nonverbal behaviors for instruction and class management belongs in the category we have called "effective."

Descriptive versus experimental studies. Smith (1979a, 1979b) suggested an extensive phase of collecting descriptive, protocol data before attempting experimental studies of nonverbal communication in teaching. While this plan is probably appropriate for most research questions, the study of the nonverbal aspects of teacher expectancy phenomena should not require further descriptive mapping before meaningful experimentation can take place. Expectancy phenomena in social interactions have been studied extensively in settings both inside and outside the classroom (e.g., Cooper, 1979; Cooper & Fazio, 1979; King, 1971; Rosenthal, 1976; Snyder & Swann, 1978; Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974). It is generally agreed that nonverbal behaviors play an important role in mediating the self-fulfilling prophecy effect in which initial expectations motivate expectancy-confirming behaviors (Darley & Fazio, 1980). As evidenced by the studies reported in this review, much of the well-designed and replicated research on teacher nonverbal communication in classrooms and classroom analogues has addressed the issue of how teachers form and communicate expectations nonverbally, and how students interpret their teachers' nonverbal behaviors. Finally, a well-developed theory of expectation confirmation has recently been articulated.

Expectancy confirmation. In their recent article Darley and Fazio (1980) describe a model of simple social interaction in keeping with the model of teacher influence presented in this review. The model involves:

(a) a perceiver's formation of an expectancy about a target person, (b) his or her behavior congruent with the expectation, (c) the target's interpretation of this behavior, (d) the target's response, (e) the perceiver's interpretation of the response, and (f) the target's interpretation of his or her own response, (p. 867)

The authors discuss what can happen at each step of the interaction process to bias the perceptions of the participants.


http://rre.aera.net


One possible outcome of this chain of events is the classic self-fulfilling prophecy in which the perceiver's initially false belief evokes a response from the target that confirms the belief. But Darley and Fazio (1980) outline five other potential outcomes that also can serve to confirm the perceiver's initial expectations of the target. For example, even if the target's responses are disconfirming and do not fit the perceiver's expectations, the perceiver might assume that the target's behavior is not representative and is really caused by outside forces. In a classroom this can happen when a student that the teacher expects to fail actually performs well on a test, but the teacher dismisses the disconfirming evidence by assuming the student has received extra or unlawful "help." Thus the initial expectation remains confirmed. Each of the other four possible expectancy-confirming outcomes presented could be translated into research questions examining teacher expectancy effects.

Darley and Fazio (1980) emphasize the role of attributions, actor-observer differences in perception, implicit personality theories, and stereotypes in biasing interpretations of the behavior of others at each phase of the social interaction sequence. In addition, they suggest that nonverbal behaviors play a very important role in the mediation of expectancy confirmation. The consequences of expectancy-confirming outcomes in social interactions are particularly significant when the perceiver, like the classroom teacher, is in a powerful position and can compel the target to follow particular courses of action. The process-product paradigm and external variable research methods are best suited for studying relationships in which influence flows in one direction, either because one person in the interaction holds most of the power, or because initial beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors prove resistant to change.

The Behavioral Negotiation Model

Recently, Doyle (Note 13) suggested a view of what happens in classrooms that may contribute a needed dimension to the traditional process-product model. His address to the American Educational Research Association, entitled "The Tasks of Teaching and Learning," represented a significant departure from longstanding assumptions about what teachers are trying to accomplish in classrooms. He argued that the major task for teachers is establishing and maintaining cooperation from students in activities that the teachers believe will enhance learning. Students have their own tasks and priorities, usually not in keeping with the teachers' goals. Therefore, teachers do what they believe is necessary to maintain cooperation. Doyle's position can be summarized as follows:

There would appear to be no direct teacher effects in the sense that these effects have traditionally been conceptualized as relationships between specific teacher behaviors and


http://rre.aera.net


measures of achievement. Teacher behavior in classrooms is most likely a product of teacher-student interaction and is shaped by the demands of securing cooperation in classroom activities. (Doyle, Note 13, p. 34)

The model underlying Doyle's description of classroom life is one of reciprocal influence or behavioral negotiation. Educational researchers should consider borrowing the theoretical constructs of "reflexivity" and "action chain development" from anthropology to investigate teacher-pupil behavioral negotiation. Reflexivity (Erickson, 1979) refers to the reciprocal influence process through which people read each other's nonverbal behaviors and adjust their own behaviors based on the messages received.

When patterns of nonverbal behavior and response become relatively standard within particular contexts, as in greetings, a particular "action chain" has developed (Hall, 1972). The more complex a culture becomes, the more participants must learn how to interact with other people and with the technology of the society, developing successful action chains in many new situations. A teacher trying to gain the cooperation of students is trying to establish a successful action chain appropriate for the learning task at hand.

Arlin's (1979) work is an example of an investigation of effective action chains within a particular context. He concluded that managing a transition is a critical teaching skill and describes characteristics of effective transition such as "advance preparation," "wrap-ups," "wait-time procedures," and "follow-through." In establishing successful action chains for transitions, teachers are responding to pupil behavior in order to produce a short-term outcome. Bremme and Erickson (1977) also identified effective action chains within the context of a primary classroom's "first circle." This was the name given to an informal discussion of experiences and plans that preceded the day's formal work.

Studies of action chains in teaching seldom use the external variable research strategy. The methods employed would probably be classified as "structural" because researchers are attempting to identify the underlying rules, patterns, and organization (i.e., structure) of nonverbal communication in particular contexts. They are not interested in finding significant differences among variables but instead seek to identify the elements of the structural unit that occur every time in a given situation. Methods for collecting data are often ethnographic, and results are reported in a more descriptive manner. Both Duncan (1969) and Harper et al. (1978) describe the structural research strategy as it has been used in settings outside the classroom, while McDermott, Gospodinoff, and Aron (1978) provide an excellent guide for ethnographic studies of classrooms. For a detailed description of many aspects of classroom life that could be studied using the structural approach, see Brooks (Note 14).


http://rre.aera.net


Writing over 10 years ago about the field of nonverbal communication, Duncan (1969) emphasized the importance of both the structural and the external variable research strategies:

The two approaches are distinct and complementary . . . each is capable of generating types of information not obtainable from the other, and . . . researchers using one approach should make maximal use of findings stemming from the other, (pp. 134-135)

Structural methods should help classroom researchers to identify the unwritten rules of teaching and learning in large and small groups (Mehan, 1979; Shultz, Florio, & Erickson, 1982). Using these methods investigators can answer questions such as: How do effective teachers use nonverbal communication to maintain student attention during a lecture? What are the norms in a particular class for getting help from the teacher (Merritt & Humphrey, 1979)? What are the cultural differences in nonverbally indicating attention or comprehension that interfere with accurate communication between teacher and student? How do particular student nonverbal behaviors come to be valued in particular classroom contexts? External variable research methods are more appropriate to study process-product relationships such as the effects of various teacher nonverbal behaviors on the students' long-term retention of factual material or the role of particular teacher nonverbal behaviors in communicating expectations to students. As Duncan (1969) noted, "external variable studies can turn up recurrent behavior patterns which are suggestive to the investigator of structure. Similarly, structural studies may discover regularities which can be related to external variables of interest" (p. 121).

An example of this complementary relationship between structural and external variable research can be found in the work of Kounin (1970), Brophy and Evertson (Note 7), and Ogden, Brophy and Evertson (Note 15). Using structural methods, Kounin identified several implicit rules that effective class managers seemed to follow. The process-product research of Brophy and Evertson, based on external variable methods, identified significant correlational relationships among the teacher behaviors Kounin had described and selected student outcomes. Ogden, Brophy, and Evertson manipulated these teacher behaviors in an intervention study and found causal relationships between several of the teacher behaviors and student achievement.

The study of teaching and the study of nonverbal communication have reached a stage at which they need not travel in divergent theoretical or methodological directions. The study of nonverbal communication in teaching should not proceed independently of theoretical developments in the study of teaching effectiveness. Nor should the study of teaching effectiveness continue to overlook advances in research on nonverbal


http://rre.aera.net


communication. The process-product model and the behavioral negotiation model, both investigated with external variable and structural methods, provide theoretical foundations and appropriate methods for research on teaching and nonverbal communication.

REFERENCE NOTES

1. Brophy, J. Advances in teacher effectiveness research. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, Chicago, February 1979.

2. Rosenshine, B. Primary grades instruction and student achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, April 1977.

3. Cazden, C. Personal communication, September 29, 1981. 4. French, R. L., & Galloway, C. M. A description of teacher behavior: verbal and

nonverbal. Unpublished paper, Ohio State University, Columbus, 1968. 5. Stewart, L. P., Cooper, P. J., & Friedley, S. A. The development of functional

communication competencies in children. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Los Angeles, April 1981.

6. Feldman, R. S., & Allen, V. L. Developmental trends in decoding nonverbal behavior. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Philadelphia, April 1974.

7. Brophy, J. E., & Evertson, C M . Process-product correlations in the Texas Teacher Effectiveness Study: Final Report (Report No. 74-4). Austin Tex.: University of Texas Research and Development Center for Teacher Education, June 1974.

8. Soar, R. S. Final Report: Follow through classroom process measurement and pupil growth (1970-71). Gainesville, Fla.: University of Florida, June 1973.

9. Stallings, J. A., & Kaskowitz, D. H. Follow through classroom evaluation, 1972-1973. Menlo Park, Calif.: Stanford Research Institute, August 1974.

10. Rosenshine, B. Academic engaged, content covered, and direct instruction. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, April 1978.

11. Gardner, C. Nonverbal behavior videotape coders' manual. Unpublished paper, Research and Development Center for Teacher Education, University of Texas at Austin, 1980.

12. Sackett, G. P. A nonparametric lag sequential analysis for studying dependency among responses in observational scoring systems. Unpublished manuscript, University of Washington, 1974.

13. Doyle, W. The tasks of teaching and learning. Invited address at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, April 1979.

14. Brooks, D. M. The vocabulary of context: A synthesis of salient terminology related to contextual analysis of teacher-pupil inactive dynamics within naturalistic classrooms. Paper presented at the meeting of the Southwestern Education Research Association, San Antonio, February 1980.

15. Ogden, J. E., Brophy, J. E., & Evertson, C M . An experimental investigation of organization and management techniques in first grade reading groups. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, April 1977.


http://rre.aera.net


REFERENCES

Abramovich, R. Children's recognition of situational aspects of facial expression. Child Development, 1977, 48, 459-463.

Achilles, C. M., & French, R. L. Inside classrooms: Studies in verbal and nonverbal communication. Danville, I11.: Interstate Printers and Publishers, 1977.

Adams, R., & Biddle, B. Realities of teaching: Explorations with videotape. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1970.

Albert, S., & Dabbs, J. M., Jr. Physical distance and persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 15, 265-270.

Amidon, P. Nonverbal interaction analysis: A method of systematically observing and recording nonverbal behavior. Minneapolis, Minn.: Association for Productive Teaching, 1971. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 071 925)

Antonoplos, P. A. An exploratory study in the development of an objectively scored instrument to assess teacher verbal and nonverbal classroom behavior as perceived by secondary school students. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1979, 39 (8-A), 4681.

Arlin, M. Teacher transitions can disrupt time flow in classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 1979, 16, 42-56.

Bates, J. E. Effects of children's nonverbal behavior upon adults. Child Development, 1976, 47, 1079-1088.

Beebe, S. The role of nonverbal communication in education: Research and theoretical perspectives. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, New York, November 1980. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 196 063)

Birdwhistell, R. Kinesics and context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970.

Braroe, N. W. State of nonverbal communication as a field of inquiry. American Anthropologist, 1976, 78, 866-870.

Braun, C. Teacher expectations: Sociopsychological dynamics. Review of Educational Research, 1976, 46, 185-215.

Breed, G. Nonverbal behavior and teaching effectiveness (Final report no. RMQ66000). Washington, D.C.: Office of Education, 1971. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 059 182)

Breed, G., & Colaiuta, V. Looking, blinking, and sitting: Nonverbal dynamics in the classroom. Journal of Communication, 1974, 24, 75-81.

Bremme, D. W., & Erickson, F. Relationships among verbal and nonverbal classroom behaviors. Theory Into Practice, 1977, 16, 153-161.

Brooks, D. M., & Rogers, C. J. Researching pupil attending behavior within naturalistic classroom settings. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 1981,12, 201-210.

Brooks, D. M., Silvern, S., & Wooten, M. The ecology of teacher-pupil classroom interaction. The Journal of Classroom Interactions, 1978, 14, 39-45.

Brooks, D., & Wagenhauser, B. Pupil completion time as a nonverbal component of teacher attitude toward selected pupils. Elementary School Journal, 1980, 81, 24-27.

Brooks, D. M., & Wilson, B. J. Teacher verbal and nonverbal expression toward selected pupils. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1978, 70, 147-153.

Brophy, J. E. The student as the unit of analysis (Research report No. 75-12 to DHEW), 1975. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 147 273)

Brophy, J. E. Teacher behavior and its effects. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1979, 71, 733-750.


http://rre.aera.net


Brophy, J., & Good, T. Teacher-student relationships: Causes and consequences. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1974.

Buck, R. Nonverbal communication of affect in preschool children: Relationships with personality and skin conductance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1977, 35, 225-236.

Bugental, D. E., Henker, B., & Whalen, C. K. Attributional antecedents of verbal and vocal assertiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1976, 34, 405-411.

Bugental, D. E., Kaswan, J. W., & Love, L. R. Perception of contradictory meanings conveyed by verbal and nonverbal channels. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 16, 647-655.

Bugental, D. E., & Love, L. R. Nonassertive expression of parental approval and disapproval and its relationship to child disturbance. Child Development, 1915,46, 747-752

Caputo, J. S. A functional taxonomy to describe nonverbal behavior in naturalistic settings. Australian Scan of Nonverbal Communication, 1980, 8, 43-55.

Chaikin, A. L., & Derlega, V. Nonverbal mediators of expectancy effects in black and white children. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1978, 8, 117-125.

Chaikin, A. L., Gillen, B., Derlega, V. J., Heinen, J. R. K., & Wilson, M. Students' reactions to teachers' physical attractiveness and nonverbal behavior: Two exploratory studies. Psychology in the Schools, 1978, 15, 588-595.

Chaikin, A., Sigler, E., & Derlega, V. Nonverbal mediators of teacher expectancy effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1974, 30, 144-149.

Cheffers, J. T. F. Validation of an instrument designed to expand the Flanders System of Interaction Analysis. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1973, 34(4-A), 1674.

Civikly, J. M. A description and experimental analysis of teacher nonverbal communication in the college classroom. Dissertation Abstracts International, 197r4, 55(2-A), 1265.

Clark, B. M., & Creswell, J. L. Participant versus non-participant perception of teacher nonverbal behavior. The Journal of Classroom Interaction, 1978, 14, 28-38.

Cooper, H. M. Pygmalion grows up: A model for teacher expectation communication and performance influence. Review of Educational Research, 1979, 49, 389-410.

Cooper, J., & Fazio, R. H. The formation and persistence of attitudes that support intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The psychology of intergroup relations. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1979.

Cosper, B. An analysis of sex differences in teacher-student interaction as manifest in verbal and nonverbal behavior cues. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1971, 52(l-A), 302.

Crump, H. B. An analysis of the verbal and nonverbal behaviors of teachers toward adjudicated delinquents. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1974, 35(6-A), 3559-3560.

Darley, J. M., & Fazio, R. H. Expectancy confirmation processes arising in the social interaction sequence. American Psychologist, 1980, 35, 867-881.

Darnell, R. Reflections on Cree interactional etiquette: Educational implications (Working Paper in Sociolinguistics No. 57). Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Education, 1979. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 174 037)

Davis, G. L., Dobson, R., & Sheldon, J. Nonverbal behavior of first-grade teachers in different socioeconomic level schools. Journal of the Student Personnel Association for Teacher Education, 1973, 2, 76-80.


http://rre.aera.net


DePaulo, B., & Rosenthal, R. Age changes in nonverbal decoding skills: Evidence for increasing differentiation. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 1978, 25, 145-150.

Derlega, V., McAnulty, M., Strout, S., & Reavis, C. A. Pygmalion effects among blacks: When and how expectancies occur. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1980, 10, 260-271.

Dimitrovsky, L. The ability to identify the emotional meaning of vocal expressions at successive age levels. In J. R. Davitz (Ed.), The communications of emotional meaning. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

Dittman, A. T. Interpersonal messages of emotion. New York: Springer, 1972. Dobson, R., Sewell, R., & Sheldon, J. Congruence of verbal and nonverbal

behavior of elementary school teachers with differing beliefs about the nature of man. Journal of the Student Personnel Association for Teacher Education, 1974, 12, 157-164.

Doyle, W. The uses of nonverbal behaviors: Toward an ecological model of classrooms. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 1977, 23, 179-192.

Driscoll, J. B. The effects of a teacher's eye contact, gestures, and voice intonation on student retention of factual material. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1979, 39(9-B), 4557.

Duncan, S. Nonverbal communication. Psychological Bulletin, 1969, 72, 118-137. Dunkin, M. J., & Biddle, B. G. The study of teaching. New York: Holt, Rinehart, &

Winston, 1974. Ekman, P. Facial expression. In A. Siegman & S. Feldstein (Eds.), Nonverbal

behavior and communication. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. Nonverbal behavior in psychotherapy research. In J.

M. Shlien, H. F. Hunt, J. D. Matarazzo, & C. Savage (Eds.), Research in psychotherapy (Vol. 3). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1968.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica, 1969, 1, 49-98.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1975.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. Measuring facial movement. Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior, 1976, 1, 56-75.

Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., O'Sullivan, M., & Scherer, K. Relative importance of face, body, and speech in judgments of personality and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1980, 38, 270-277.

Erickson, F. Talking down: Some cultural sources of miscommunication in interracial interviews. In A. Wolfgang (Ed.), Nonverbal behavior: Applications and cultural implications. New York: Academic Press, 1979.

Exline, R. V.,Ellyson, S. L., & Long, B. Visual behavior as an aspect of power relationships. In P. Pliners, L. Krames, & T. Alloway (Eds.), Nonverbal communication of aggression (Vol. 2). New York: Plenum, 1975.

Feldman, R. S. Nonverbal disclosure of teacher deception and interpersonal affect. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1976, 68, 807-816.

Feldman, R. S. Race of student and nonverbal behavior of teacher. The Journal of Classroom Interaction, 1977, 12, 20-26.

Feldman, R. S., & Allen, V. L. Effect of tuteeperformance on tutor's verbal and nonverbal behavior (Tech. Rep. No. 305, Project on Conditions of School Learning and Instructional Strategies). Madison, Wisc.: R & D Center for Cognitive Learning, University of Wisconsin, 1974.

Feldman, R. S., & Donohoe, L. F. Nonverbal communication of affect in interracial dyads. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1978, 70, 979-987.


http://rre.aera.net


Feldman, R. S., & Prohaska, J. The student as Pygmalion: Effect of student expectancy on the teacher. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1979, 71, 485-493.

Feldman, R. S., & White, J. B. Management of nonverbal behavior in children. In V. L. Allen (Ed.), Interpersonal skills in tutoring: The role of nonverbal behavior. New York: Academic Press, in press.

Flanders, N. A. Analyzing teacher behavior. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1970.

Fowler, W. R. Comparative analyses of teacher verbal and nonverbal behavior in public school and adult basic education classrooms. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1972, 33(8-A), 4042.

Fredrickson, P. A., & Ertel, K. A. Analysis of student perceptions of typewriting teacher nonverbal behavior. Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, 1977, 19, 7-15.

Fried, E. S. The impact of nonverbal communication of affect on children's learning. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1976, 37(6-A), 3907.

Friesen, W. V., Ekman, P., & Wallbott, H. Measuring hand movements. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 1979, 4, 97-112.

Gafner, R. Nonverbal cues of teacher warmth as perceived by students. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1977, 55(1-A), 212.

Galloway, C. Analysis of theories and research in nonverbal communication. Unpublished manuscript, Ohio State University, 1974. ERIC Clearinghouse on Teacher Education, 1972. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 059 988(9))

Goldberg, G., & Mayerberg, C. K. Emotional reactions of students to nonverbal teacher behavior. Journal of Experimental Education, 1973, 42, 29-32.

Good, T. Teacher effectiveness in the elementary school: What we know about it now. Journal of Teacher Education, 1979, 30, 52-64.

Gottman, J., Markman, H., & Notarius, C. The topography of martial conflict: A sequential analysis of verbal and nonverbal behavior. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1977, 39, 461-477.

Gottman, J. M., & Notarius, C. Sequential analysis of observational data using Markov chains. In T. Kratochwill (Ed.), Single subject research: Strategies for evaluating change. New York: Academic Press, 1978.

Grant, B. M. Analyzing teacher nonverbal activity. Theory Into Practice, 1977,16, 200-206.

Grant, B. M., & Hennings, D. G. The teacher moves: An analysis of nonverbal activity. New York: Teachers College Press, 1971.

Halberstadt, A., & Hall, J. Who's getting the message? Children's nonverbal skill and their evaluation by teachers. Developmental Psychology, 1980,16, 564-573.

Hall, E. T. The hidden dimension. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Hall, E. T. Handbook for proxemic research. Washington, D.C.: Society for the

Anthropology of Visual Communication, 1972. Hall, J. Gender effects in decoding nonverbal cues. Psychological Bulletin, 1978,85,

845-857. Hall, J. Gender, gender roles, and nonverbal communication skills. In R. Rosenthal

(Ed.), Skill in nonverbal communication: Individual differences. Cambridge, Mass.: Oelgeschlager, Gunn, & Hain, 1979.

Harper, R. G., Wiens, A. N., & Matarazzo, J. D. Nonverbal communication: The state of the art. New York: Wiley, 1978.

Heger, H. K. How to analyze verbal and nonverbal classroom communication. Spokane, Wash.: Whitworth College, 1980. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 183 616)


http://rre.aera.net


Henley, N. M. Body politics: Power, sex and nonverbal communication. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1977.

Hesler, M. W. An investigation of instructor use of space. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1972, 33, 3O55A.

Huffine, S., Silvern, S., & Brooks, D. M. Teacher responses to contextually specific sex-typed behaviors in kindergarten children. Educational Research Quarterly, 1979, 4, 29-35.

Imada, A. S., & Hakel, M. D. Influence of nonverbal communication and rate proximity on impressions and decisions in simulated employment interviews. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1977, 62, 295-300.

Karr, P. J., & Beatty, M. Effects of verbal-vocal message discrepancy on teacher credibility. Educational Research Quarterly, 1979, 4, 76-80.

Kashinsky, M., & Wiener, M. Tone in communication and the performance of children from socioeconomic groups. Child Development, 1969, 11, 1193-1202.

Kaufman, P. The effects of nonverbal behavior on performance and attitudes in a college classroom. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1976, 37(1-A), 235.

Keenan, A. Effects of the nonverbal behavior of interviewers on candidates' performance. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 1976, 49, 171-176.

Keith, L. T., Tornatzky, L. G., & Pettigrew, L. E. An analysis of verbal and nonverbal classroom teaching behaviors. Journal of Experimental Education, 1974, 42, 30-38.

Kelly, J. R. Visually perceived nonverbal behaviors of teachers and their relationship to affective responses of students. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1973, 33, 6731-6732A.

King, A. S. Self-fulfilling prophecies in training the hard core: Supervisors' expectations and the underprivileged workers' performance. Social Science Quarterly, 1971, 52, 369-378.

Koneya, M. Location and interaction in row and column seating arrangements. Environment and Behavior, 1976, 8, 265-282.

Kounin, J. S. Discipline and group management in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1970.

Kurtz, P. D., Harrison, M. Neisworth, J. T., & Jones, R. T. Influence of "mentally retarded" label on teachers' nonverbal behavior toward preschool children. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 1977, 82, 204-206.

LaFrance, M., & Mayo, C. Moving bodies: Nonverbal communication in social relationships. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1978.

Levine, D. Ŵ., O'Neal, E., Garwood, S., & McDonald, P. J. Classroom ecology: The effects of seating position on grades and participation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1980, 6, 409-412.

Lewis-Smith, V. Nonverbal communication in the classroom: Report, analysis, and critique of evaluative instruments. Master's thesis, University of Delaware, 1978. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 145 490)

London, F. A comparison of black and white observer perceptions of teacher verbal and nonverbal behaviors toward adjudicated delinquents. In C. Achilles & R. French (Eds.), Inside classrooms: Studies in verbal and nonverbal communication. Danville, Ohio: Interstate Printers and Publishers, 1977.

Love, A. M., & Roderick, J. A. Teacher nonverbal communication: The development and field testing of an awareness unit. Theory Into Practice, 1971,10, 295-299.

Lyons, S. Teacher nonverbal behavior related to perceived pupil social-personal attributes. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1977, 10, 173-177.

Maddox-McGinty, A. Children's nonverbal behavior in the classroom and teachers'


http://rre.aera.net


perceptions of teachability: An observational study. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1979, 39(12-A), 7282-7283.

Mayo, C , & LaFrance, M. On the acquisition of nonverbal communication: A review. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 1978, 24, 213-228.

McDermott, R. P. Gospodinoff, K., & Aron, J. Criteria for an ethnographically adequate description of concerted activities and their contexts. Semiotica, 1978, 24, 245-275.

McDonald, F. J., & Elias, P. Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study: Phase II, 1973-74, executive summary report. Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1976.

McGinley, H., LeFevre, R., & McGinley, P. The influence of a communicator's body position on opinion change in others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 31, 686-690.

McKessar, C. J., & Thomas, D. R. Verbal and nonverbal help-seeking among urban Maori and Pakeha children. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 1978, 13, 29-39C.

Medley, D. M., Schluck, C , & Ames, N. Assessing the learning environment in the classroom: A manual for users of OSCAR 5V (Research memorandum). Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1968.

Mehan, H. Learning lessons: Social organization in the classroom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979.

Mehrabian, A. Nonverbal communication. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972. Merritt, M., & Humphrey, F. Teacher, talk, and task: Communicating demands

during individualized instruction. Theory Into Practice, 1979, 18, 298-303. Middleman, R. The impact of nonverbal communications of affect on children from

two different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1972, 33, 1522A-1523A.

Millard, R. J., & Stimpson, D. V. Enjoyment and productivity as a function of classroom seating location. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1980, 50, 439-444.

Noble, C. G., & Nolan, J. D. Effect of student verbal behavior on classroom teacher behavior. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1976, 68, 342-346.

Norton, L., & Dobson, R. Perceptions of teachers' nonverbal behaviors by children of different race, age and sex. Humanist Educator, 1976, 14, 94-102.

Odom, R., & Lemond, C. Developmental differences in the perception and production of facial expressions. Child Development, 1972, 43, 359-369.

Otteson, J. P., & Otteson, C. R. Effects of teacher gaze on children's story recall. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1980, 50, 35-42.

Parsons, D. A study of student teachers' expectations, and their verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1973, 33, 5012B.

Peterson, D. R. Assessing interpersonal relationships by means of interaction records. Behavioral Assessment, 1979, 1, 221-236.

Post, B., & Hetherington, E. M. Sex differences in the use of proximity and eye contact in judgments of affiliation in preschool children. Developmental Psychology, 1974, 10, 881-889.

Richey, H. W., & Richey, M. H. Nonverbal behavior in the classroom. Psychology in the Schools, 1978, 15, 571-576.

Rist, R. C. Student social class and teacher expectations: The self-fulfilling prophecy in ghetto education. Harvard Educational Review, 1970, 40, 411-451.

Rosenfeld, H. M. Effect of approval-seeking and approval-inducing functions of verbal and nonverbal responses in the dyad. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1966, 4, 597-605.

Rosenthal, R. Experimenter effects in behavioral research. New York: Irvington, 1976.


http://rre.aera.net


Rosenthal, R. Skill in nonverbal communication: Individual differences. Cambridge, Mass.: Oelgeschlager, Gunn, & Hain, 1979.

Rosenthal, R., Hall, J. A., DiMatteo, M. R., Rogers, P. L., & Archer, D. Sensitivity to nonverbal communication: The PONS test. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1979.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils' intellectual development. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1968.

Rubin, G. N. A naturalistic study in proxemics: Seating arrangement and its effect on interaction, performance, and behavior. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1973, 33, 3829A.

Scherer, K. R. Acoustic concomitants of emotional dimensions: Judging affect from synthesized tone sequences. In S. Weitz (Ed.), Nonverbal communication. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.

Schwebel, A., & Cherlin, D. Physical and social distancing in teacher and pupil relationships. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1972, 63, 543-550.

Scott, M. Some parameters of teacher effectiveness assessed by an ecological approach. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1977, 69, 217-226.

Seligman, C. R., Tucker, G. R., & Lambert, W. E. The effects of speech style and other attributes on teachers' attitudes towards pupils. Language in Society, 1972, 1, 131-142.

Shephard, R. An analysis of teacher nonverbal behaviors as exhibited towards pupils representing three social classes. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1971, 32, 2539A.

Shultz, J., Florio, S., & Erickson, F. "Where's the floor?": Aspects of the cultural organization of social relationships in communication at home and at school. In P. Gilmore & A. Glatthorn (Eds.), Ethnography and education: Children in and out of school. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.

Siegman, A., & Feldstein, S. Nonverbal behavior and communication. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978.

Silberman, M. L. Behavioral expression of teachers' attitudes towards elementary school students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1969, 60, 402-407.

Smith, H. Nonverbal behavior and student achievement in the elementary school. Paper presented at the meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, Saskatoon, June 1979. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 181 000) (a)

Smith, H. A. Nonverbal communication in teaching. Review of Educational Research, 1979, 49, 631-672. (b)

Snyder, M. L., & Swann, W. B. Behavioral confirmation in social interaction: From social perception to social reality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1978, 14, 148-162.

Sommer, R. Personal space: The behavioral basis of design. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1969.

Sommer, R. Tight spaces: Hard architecture and how to humanize it. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1974.

Stires, L. Classroom seating location, student grades, and attitudes: Environment or self-selection? Environment and Behavior, 1980, 12, 24-254.

Victoria, J. An investigation of nonverbal behavior of student teachers. University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University, 1970 (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 042 724)

Walker, R., & Adelman, C. Time-lapse photography in recording classroom events. London: Chelsea College of Science and Technology, 1971. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 047 506)


http://rre.aera.net


Wass, H. Pupil evaluations of teacher messages in three channels of communication. Florida Journal of Educational Research, 1973, 15, 46-52.

Wexley, K. N, Fugita, S. S., & Malone, M. P. An applicant's nonverbal behavior and student-evaluators' judgments in a structured interview setting. Psychological Reports, 1975, 36, 391-394.

Whitfield, T. D., & Galloway, C. M. The use of pupil perceptions of teacher behavior to develop a classroom observation system. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, March 1978. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 170 310)

Wiener, M., Devoe, S., Rubinow, S., & Geller, J. Nonverbal behavior and nonverbal communication. Psychological Review, 1972, 79, 185-214.

Williams, N. H. The effects of nonverbal communication on classroom climate and achievement. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1978, 5δ(ll-A), 6662.

Winne, P. H., & Marx, R. W. Reconceptualizing research on teaching. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1977, 69, 668-678.

Wolfgang, A. The silent language in the multicultural classroom. Theory Into Practice, 1977, 16, 145-152.

Wolfgang, A. The teacher and nonverbal behavior in the multicultural classroom. In A. Wolfgang (Ed.), Nonverbal behavior: Applications and cultural implications. New York: Academic Press, 1979.

Wolfgang, A. The psychological implications of nonverbal behavior in the multicultural classroom. Multiculturalism, 1981, 4, 10-14.

Woolfolk, A. E. Student learning and performance under varying conditions of teacher verbal and nonverbal evaluative communication. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1978, 70, 87-94.

Woolfolk, A. E. The eye of the beholder: Methodological considerations when observers assess nonverbal communication. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 1981, 5, 199-204.

Woolfolk, A. E., Abrams, L., Abrams, D., & Wilson, G. T. The nonverbal communication of anxiety: The impact of beliefs on nonverbal behavior. Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior, 1979, 4, 205-218.

Woolfolk, A. E., Garlinsky, K. S., & Nicolich, M. J. The impact of teacher behavior, teacher sex and student sex upon student self-disclosure. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 1977, 2, 124-132.

Woolfolk, R. L., & Woolfolk, A. E. Effects of teacher verbal and nonverbal behaviors on student perceptions and attitudes. American Educational Research Journal, 1974, 11, 297-303.

Woolfolk, R. L. Woolfolk, A. E., & Garlinsky, K. S. Nonverbal behavior of teachers: Some empirical findings. Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior, 1977, 2, 45-61.

Word, C. O., Zanna, M. P., & Cooper, J. The nonverbal mediation of self-fulfilling prophecies in interracial interaction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1974, 10, 109-120.

Wulf, K. M. Relationship of assigned classroom seating area to achievement variables. Educational Research Quarterly, 1977, 21, 56-62.


http://rre.aera.net

Chapter 5 Nonverbal Communication in Teaching - CiteSeerX

Documents

Transcript of Chapter 5 Nonverbal Communication in Teaching - CiteSeerX