ACCURATE AND INACCURATE OBSERVER SUMMARY REPORTS

Abstract

Forty elementary schoolteachers observed 15 video tapes of six children engaged in silent reading. The children were actually following prepared scripts which systematically determined the percentage of time they engaged in reading or “distractible” behavior. One of the children's distractible behaviors was faded over the 15 tapes, such that she produced distractible behaviors on 75 per cent of the first tape and on 15 per cent of the last tape. Some teacher-observers were given simple observational techniques and some were not. At the end of each tape all teacher-observers were asked to rate each child on a seven-point “distractibility scale.” Results showed that the untrained observers were quite inaccurate in their ratings, but also quite reliable. The trained observers, while they displayed more disagreements among themselves, were a good deal more accurate in their ratings.

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