The Role of Scheduling in Observing Teacher-Child Interactions

Observational assessnient is being used on a large scale to evaluate the quality Of interactions between teachers and children in classroom environments. When one performs observations at scale, features of the protocol such as the seheduling of Observations can potentially influenee observed scores. In this study interactions were observed for 88 teachers across 814 videos. The associations between observed scores using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System and characteristics of the protocol, specifically the day of the week, month of the year, and duration of an observation Cycle in minutes, were examined through multilevel modeling. Preliminary evidence indicates few significant associations. The quality of instructional support interactions peaked in the months of December and January; and the quality. of classroom organization peaked in February through April. Observation cycles that were shorter in duration were rated more positively regarding classroom organization. Future opportunities for research are discussed.