Smart classroom environments affect teacher-student interaction: Evidence from a behavioural sequence analysis

This study investigated the effect of classroom settings on teacher-student interaction in higher education by comparing the behavioural sequences in smart classrooms (SCs) and traditional multimedia classrooms (TMCs). Twenty in-classroom teaching sessions were randomly selected from six universities in South China, involving 1,043 students and 23 teachers. Half of the sessions were taken in SCs as the experimental group, and half were in TMCs as the control group. A teacher-student interaction behaviour coding schema was developed, and a total of 17,805 observable behaviours were collected and coded sequentially via a review of classroom videos. Then, the behavior pattern diagram was set up to visualise a lag sequential analysis results by four themes, namely teacher-talk, teacher-action, studenttalk and student-action. Results show that compared to TMCs, the SCs triggered significantly more self-initiated student actions and student-driven teacher talk, while teacher-initiated talk decreased significantly, indicating that students' autonomy was strengthened in the SC. Furthermore, teachers' workload was somewhat reduced, and they obtained more support with trying new pedagogies with mobile terminals in the data-rich environment. These findings provide evidence to validate the effect of SCs on increasing teacher-student interaction and strengthening the students' dominant position. Implications for practice or policy: We recommend that teachers provide guidance and scaffolding to support students in SCs, especially during the inquiry process. Instructional designers should consider more course activities and collect students' feedback during course via smart terminals, to make the learning process more assessable. Universities should provide training to help teachers improve their technological, pedagogical and content knowledge, become acquainted with SC infrastructure and provide technical support during class.