By- Sernmel, Melvyn I.; And Others ANALYSIS or TEACHER-PUPIL VERBAL INTERACTION PATTERNS IN CLASSES FOR THE MENTALLY

Flanders ' Interaction Analysis, which classifies verbal interaction into 10 categories, was used to compare two groups consisting of seven trainable mentally retarded (TMR) classrooms each. The sample was selected from the extremes of apopulation of 87 TMR classrooms on the basis of their teachers ' high (tending to flexibility and harmony) or low (tending _ to rigidity and autocracy) scores on the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory (MTAI). Trained observers visited each class for 2 hours and recorded the verbal interaction used more questions (p<.01) and had more student response (p<05); low MTAI teachers used more lecture and criticism(p<05) and had more student initiated talk (p<.01). Teacher attitudes and measures of accepting feeling, praise, using ideas, and giving directions were not significant. Results did not yield unqualified support for the hypothesis that teachers ' verbal behavior in the classroom can be predicted from MTAI scores because the stratification of teachers by MTAI scores indicated bias in the amount of teaching experience (the high subgroup had fewer years of teaching experience). A histogram compares the data with data from an earlier study using educable mentally retarded and normal subjects. Five tables and16 references are provided. (AA) OEC-3-6-061784-050