INTERACTION ANALYSIS UNIT- IX

UNIT- IX INTERACTION ANALYSIS

A.    Meaning of Interaction Analysis

B.     Characteristics of Interaction Analysis

C.    Theoretical Assumptions of Interaction Analysis

D.    Important techniques of Interaction Analysis:

1.      Flanders’ Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS),

2.      Reciprocal Category System (RCS),

3.      Equivalent Talk Categories (ETC),

4.      Verbal Interaction Category System (VICS) and

5.      Bale’s Interaction Process Categories (BIPC).

A.    Meaning of Interaction Analysis

             The interaction analysis is a technique for analyzing and observing the classroom behaviour. It provides the structure, components and flow of behaviour of classroom activities. The interaction analysis can also be used as a mechanism of feedback device for the observation and modification of teacher behaviour. The pupil’s teachers are trained in both theory and practice of interaction analysis for use in it as observation and feedback device. They should be well acquainted with encoding and decoding process of interaction analysis. During the teaching Practice program me, classroom teaching of teachers trainees are observed by using the interaction analysis. The record sheet of classroom observation should be given to the teacher concerned and he is asked to decode his own behaviour by preparing the matrix table. The decoding process provides him own teaching components and flow of behaviour.

B.     Characteristics of Interaction Analysis

The interaction analysis as an observation device may be useful for developing the following teaching behavior

 1. The verbal interaction of the classroom can be made more effective and interesting.

 2. Students’ participation can be increased by the teacher in his teaching.

 3. The teacher may shift his direct behaviour into indirect behavior.

 4. The creative behaviour patterns can be developed by giving the awareness and the practice of interaction modes.

 5. The technique can be used with another feedback device like micro teaching and simulated teaching.

C.    Theoretical Assumptions of Interaction Analysis

1.            Predominance of verbal communication

2.      Higher reliability of verbal behavior

3.      Consistency of verbal statements

4.      Teacher’s influence

5.      Relation between students and teacher

6.      Relation between social climate and productivity

7.      Relation between class-room climate and learning

8.      Use of observational technique

9.      Role of feedback

10.  Expression through verbal statement

D.    Important techniques of Interaction Analysis:

            Interaction analysis is a process of encoding and decoding the pattern of interaction between the communicator and the receiver. In the coding process a code symbol is assigned to each category of behaviour and a trained observer records by jotting down code symbols. In the decoding step, a trained analyst interpret the display of code data and reconstructs the original events on the basis of the encoded data. Interaction analysis is the study of classroom climate and teaching behaviour of the teacher.

Classroom interaction analysis can be used for pre service and in service education in order to help teachers improve the quality of classroom instruction. This requires some kind of objective feedback to the person who is trying to change his behaviour.

There are many important techniques to observe the interaction systematically. Some of them are:

1.      Flanders’ Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS)

            Ned. A. Flanders developed a system of interaction analysis to study what is happening in a classroom when a teacher teaches. It is known as Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS). Flanders and others developed this system at the University of Minnesota, U.S.A. between 1955 and 1960. Flanders classified total verbal behaviour into 10 categories. Verbal behaviour comprises teacher talk, student talk and silence or confusion.

The ten categories are mentioned as under:

1. Teacher Talk – 7 categories

2. Pupil Talk – 2 categories

3. Silence or Confusion- 1 category

Thus, the first seven categories include teacher talk. Next two categories include pupil talk. The last tenth category includes the small spans of silence or pause or confusion. The first 7 categories or teacher talk has been bifurcated into a) indirect talk,

b) direct talk.

Teacher’s Talk - 7 Categories

A) Indirect Talk (4 Categories)

1. Accepts Feelings

2. Praise or Encouragement

3. Accepts or Uses ideas of Pupils

4. Asking Questions

B) Direct Talk (3 Categories)

5. Lecture

6. Giving Directions

7. Criticizing or Justifying Authority

Pupil Talk (2 Categories)

8. Pupil Talk Response

9. Pupil Talk Initiation

Neither Teacher Talk nor Pupil Talk (1 Category)

10. Silence or Pause or Confusion

MEANING OF VARIOUS CATEGORIES

Categories
Teacher talk		Categories	Meaning
	Indirect Influence	1. Accept feeling	* In this category, teacher accepts the feelings of the pupils. * He feels himself that the pupils should not be punished for exhibiting his feelings. * Feelings may be positive or negative.
		2.Praises or encourages	*Teacher praises or encourages student action or behaviour. *When a student gives answer to the question asked by the teacher, the teacher gives positive reinforcement by saying words like “good‟, “very good‟, “better‟, “correct‟, “excellent‟, “carry on‟, etc.
		3. Accept ideas Indirect Influence	*It is just like 1st category. But in this category, the pupils ideas are accepted only and not his feelings. *If a pupil passes on some suggestions, then the teacher may repeat in nutshell in his own style or words. *The teacher can say, “I understand what you mean‟ etc. Or the teacher clarifies, builds or develops ideas or suggestions given by a student.
		4. Asks questions	*Asking question about content or procedures, based on the teacher ideas and expecting an answer from the pupil. *Sometimes, teacher asks the question but he carries on his lecture without receiving any answer. Such questions are not included in this category.
	Direct Influence	5. Lectures	*Giving facts or opinions about content or procedure expression of his own ideas, giving his own explanation or citing an authority other than a pupil.
		6. Gives directions	The teacher gives directions, commands or orders or initiation, with which a pupil/student is expected to comply with, - Open your books. - Stand up on the benches. - Solve 4th sum of exercise 5.3.
		7. Criticizes	When the teacher asks the pupils not to interrupt with foolish questions, then this behaviour is included in this category. *Teacher’s “what” and “why‟ also come under this category
Student talk		8. Pupil’s response	*It includes the pupils talk in response to teacher’s talk *Teacher asks question, student gives answer to the question.
		9. Student talk Initiation	*Talk by pupils that they initiate. *Expressing own ideas; initiating a new topic; freedom to develop opinions and a line of thought like asking thoughtful questions; going beyond the existing structure. 3. Silence or Pause or Confusion (1 category
		10.Silence or confusion	*Pauses, short periods of silence and period of confusion in which communication cannot be understood by the observer.

PROCEDURE OF OBSERVATION / ENCODING PROCEDURE

1.      The observer sits in the classroom in the best position to hear and see the participants.

2.      At the end of every three seconds he decides which category best represents the communication events just completed. Thus the time involves in coding one tally for every 3 seconds, is 20 tallies in one minute, 100 tallies in 5 minutes and 1200 tallies in one hour.

3.      In this process only the serial numbers of the categories are recorded.

4.      The serial number of that category is recorded on the data sheet by the observer.

5.      When the observation is over, the observer shifts to some other room and prepares the details on the basis of those serial numbers of the categories.

6.      In this observation process, the writing of serial numbers of the categories is known as ENCODING.

7.      Writing details of behaviour on the basis of these categories is known as DECODING.

8.      The observers should remember the serial numbers of these categories.

RULES FOR OBSERVATION / RULES FOR RECORDING OR DECODING

Flanders category method has many rules for observation, without following which the observation is not possible. The observer must remember these rules. These rules help in maintaining consistency and making observations uniform. These rules are as follows:

Rule 1: If more than one type of category occurs during a 3 second period, the observer should choose the category that is numerically farther from category 5 (but not category 10). Suppose the observer is in doubt whether the category is 2 or 3; he should write 2 categories.

Rule 2: The observer should not involve his personal viewpoint.

Rule 3: If more than one category is active in a span of 3 seconds, and then all the categories should be recorded. If after 3 seconds, no category changes, then the same serial number should be repeated in the next 3 seconds.

Rule 4: If the time period of silence exceeds 3 seconds, it should be recorded under the category No.10

Rule 5: When teacher calls a child by name, the observer is supposed to record a 4th category.

Rule 6: When the teacher repeats the student’s answer and the answer is a correct, that is recorded as a category No. 2. This tells the student that he has the right answer and therefore functions as praise or encouragement.

Rule 7: When a teacher listens to a pupil and accepts his ideas for a discussion, then this behaviour belongs to category No. 3.

Rule 8: The words “All is ok‟, “yes‟, “yah‟, “hum‟, “alright‟ etc. belong to the category No. 2. (Encouragement)

Rule 9: If a teacher jokes without aiming at any pupil, this behaviour belongs to the category No. 2. But if he makes any joke aiming at some particular pupil, then it belongs to the category No. 7.

Rule 10: When all the pupils respond to a very small question collectively, then the serial number of category-8 is recorded.

CONSTRUCTING INTERACTION MATRIX

a.      After encoding or observation procedure of interaction, the coded behaviours are written in 10 x 10 table. This 10 (rows) x 10 (columns) table is known as a matrix.

b.      The category numbers of the record sheet the tabulated in the matrix table. Each number is entered in the form of sequence pairs, being used twice, first as the first numbers and second as second number.

c.       The row of the matrix represent the first number and the columns the second number.

d.     For example an observation recorded is 6, 10, 7, 5, 1, 4, 8, 4

e.      Hence, the beginning and end of the coding should have the same number of the categories.

f.        It is the tradition of adding number 10 in the beginning and at the end. Hence the above number will be written in this way 10, 6, 10, 7, 5, 1, 4, 8, 4, 10

1st Pair (10, 6)

2nd Pair (6, 10)

3rd Pair (10, 7)

4th pair (7, 5)

5th Pair (5, 1)

6th Pair (1, 4)

7th Pair (4, 8)

8th Pair (8, 4)

9th Pair (4, 10)

a.      Sequence of the pair: (10, 6), (6, 10), (10, 7), (7, 5), (5, 1), (1, 4), (4, 8), (8, 4), (4, 10)

b.      While preparing matrices, one pair is marked at a time.

c.       The matrices have rows and columns.

d.     The first number of the pair represents “row‟ and second number of the pair represents “column’.

e.      For example, in the first pair (10, 6), the number 10 represents row and the number 6 represents column.

f.        Every pair overlaps the other pair. Total tallies of the matrices is N

g.      In the matrices (N-1) i.e. one less number is marked. In the above example, N=10, (N-1) i.e. 9 numbers will be marked.

h.      Each matrix has 100 cells.

INTERACTION MATRIX TABLE

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total
1				/							1
2											0
3											0
4								/		/	2
5	/										1
6										/	1
7					/						1
8				/							1
9											0
10						/	/				2
Total	1	0	0	2	1	1	1	1	0	2	9(N)

INTERPRETING THE MATRIX

The purpose of interaction analysis is to preserve selected aspects of interaction through observation, encoding, tabulation and then decoding.

     1. The proportion of teacher talk, pupil talk, and silence or confusion:

The proportion of tallies in columns 1,2,3,4,5,6and 7, columns 8,9 and column 10 to the total tallies indicates how much the teacher talks, the student talks and the time spent in silence or confusion. After several years of observing, we anticipate an average of 68 percent teacher talk, 20 percent of pupil talk and 11 or 12 percent silence or confusion.

     2. The ratio between indirect influence and direct influence:

The sum of column 1,2,3,4, divided by the sum of columns 5, 6, 7 gives this ratio. If the ratio is 1 or more than 1, the teacher is said to be indirect in his behavior. This ratio, therefore, shows whether a teacher is more direct or indirect in his teaching.

     3. The ratio between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement:

The sum of column 1, 2, 3 is to be divided by the sum of the columns 6, 7 to get this ratio. If the ratio is 1 or more than 1 then the teacher is said to have succeeded in providing positive reinforcement.

     4.  Student’s participation ratio:

       The sum of columns 8 and 9 is to be divided by total sum to get this ratio. The answer will reveal how much the students have participated in the teaching-learning process.

     5.  Steady state cells:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total
1	1.1
2		2.2
3			3.3
4				4.4
5					5.5
6						6.6
7							7.7
8								8.8
9									9.9
10										10.10
Total

The above figure shows the ‘steady state’ cells along the diagonal from the upper left to the lower right. If these cells are heavily loaded it shows that the teacher remains in a particular category for more than three seconds. The cell with the highest frequency of the entire matrix is typically the 5-5 cell which lies on this diagonal indicating that the teacher frequently stays longer than 3 seconds when he provides information through lecture.

     6. Content cross cell:

                  The cell corresponding to the number pairs (4,4) and (5,5) are known as ‘content cross’ cells. If these cells are overloaded they reflect the teacher’s emphasis on the subject matter

     7. Constructive integration cells and vicious cells:

Two areas that are most sensitive to the positive and negative aspects of social skill is the teacher-student relationship.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total
1
2		A
3
4
5
6							B
7
8
9
10
Total

       Area A might be called “Constructive Integrative Cells” while area B is called the “Vicious Cells”. The cells corresponding to number 1,2 and 3 are known as constructive integration cells because they indicate the positive aspect of the social skill of the teacher. Cells of numbers 6 and 7 are known as vicious cells because they reveal the negative aspect of the teacher.

ADVANTAGES OF FIACS

1. It is an effective tool /instrument to measure the social-emotional climate in the classroom.

2. It is also used for in-service teachers.

3. It provides feedback to the pupil-teachers.

4. It is an objective and reliable method for observation of classroom teaching.

5. It is used to compare the behaviour of teachers at different age levels, gender, subject etc.

6. It is much useful in team teaching and microteaching.

LIMITATIONS OF FIACS

1. It consumes much time in preparing 10 x 10 matrix without which, interpretation is not possible.

2. The observers have to be trained in order to code correctly.

3. Classroom interaction of pupil-pupil type is not considered here.

4. The system of coding and decoding procedure very difficult and expensive.

9.      Reciprocal Category System (RCS),

               In a survey by Amidon and Simon (1965), it was observed that more than 20 systems for classifying verbal classroom interactions are available in educational researchers. Various modifications of Flander’s system have been adopted. The R.C.S is one of them, which was developed by Richard Ober (1967) of the University of Florida. It is an attempt to direct more attention to the variety of student talk that occurs in the classroom.

            The R.C.S derives its name form the reciprocity principle. According to this principle, for every teacher’s verbal behaviour that can either be observed in the classroom or theoretically conceived there exists corresponding student behaviour. In this system, there are nine categories, which can be applied to student talk in a reciprocal way. In addition to these, there is a general category, which concerns itself with silence or confusion. The special feature of this system is that it devotes equal attention to student talk and teacher talk. Observation of classroom verbal interaction with a particular stress on the socio-emotional climate of the classroom is possible. There is also provision for noting the warming and cooling behaviour of students and teacher in addition to the positive and negative reinforcement factors.

Main Features of R.C.S

           

Category number assigned teacher talk	Description of verbal behaviour	Category number assigned to student talk
1	“Warm” (informalise) the Climate: Tends to open up and eliminate the tension of the situation; persists or encourages the action, behaviour, comments, ideas and or contribution or another, accepts and clarifies the feeling tone of another in a friendly manner. (Feeling may be positive or negative, predicating or recalling the feeling of another are included.)	11
2	Acceptance: Accepts the action behaviour, comments, ideas, and or contributions of another, positive reinforcement of these. Amplifies the contributions of another. Asks for classification of, builds on and or develops the action, behaviour of another.	12
3	Elicits: Asks a question or requests information about the comment, subject, or procedure being considered with the intent that another should answer (respond)	13
4	Responds: Gives direct answer or response to questions or requests for information that are initiated by another; includes answer to one’s own question.	14
5	Initiates: Present facts, information and or opinion concerning another, subject or procedure being considered that are self-initiated; express one’s own ideas, lectures.	15
6	Directs: Gives directions, instructions, order and /or assignments to which another is expected to comply	16
7	Corrects: Tells another that answer of behaviour is inappropriate or incorrect.	17
8	Rejects: Rejects ideas, feeling which are not acceptable.	18
9	Cools: (Formalises) the climate makes comments intended to modify the behaviour from an inappropriate to an appropriate pattern, may tend to create a certain amount of tension sometimes exercising authority in order to gain or maintain contact. The situation rejecting or criticizing the opinion or judgement of another.	19
10	Silence or confusion: Pauses, short periods of nonverbal interaction.	20

Implications of R.C.S

1.      It makes possible organized observation of the socio-emotional aspects of classroom interaction.

2.      It assists the teacher in planning strategies by providing a set of organizing patterns of instructions.

3.      It provides a method of collecting objective feedback on actual instructional segments.

4.      It leads to sensible jedgements based on qualified analyzed data related to teacher and strategies.

5.      It encourages the development of teacher made observation systems.

6.      After understanding this system, teacher (pre and in-service) can  apply this in practical ways and subsequently improve his instructional strategy.

7.      It is a means for developing awareness of socio-emotional climate of the classroom.

Limitations of R.C.S

Continued study points to the fact that R.C.S. is not evaluative. In fact, without prior planning by the teacher of a set of learning objectives and prior selection of strategies, the ability of the teacher to make sensible judgements based on R.C.S information is doubtful.

·It does not describe the totality of the classroom activity. It overlooks quality of verbal information and reacting behaviours.

               

8.      Equivalent Talk Categories (ETC),

            Another important development of interaction analysis procedure is observed in the form of Equivalent Talk Category (ETC) System. It is an outgrowth of the extensive work with the Reciprocal Category System (R.C.S). This system was developed by Ernest L.Bentley and Edith Millar in Atlanta (1970).

Main Features of E.T.C

            The main features of E.T.C system are that it is designed to classify classroom verbal interaction and places particular emphasis on the quality of verbal actions and reading behaviour. It makes possible the systematic observation of the functions. For example, Presenting, Questioning, Responding, Reacting and Structuring that directly affect the level of cognitive interaction in the classroom. There are 10 categories in the E.T.C. but as a mater of fact they are twenty because of equivalence factor and may be used in classifying either teacher or student talk.

Teacher Code	Category	Student Code
1	Present Information: Unsolicited information – lecture, explanation related to lesson, demonstration; important comments; rhetorical questions	11
2	Question – Restricted Thinking: Call for responses that result from restricted thinking – Factual knowledge or simple recall; an accepted or pre-determined correct answer; facts previously learned or easy to produce; lower levels of cognition.	12
3	Question – Expanded Thinking: Call for responses that result from expanded thinking, open-ended responses; generation and generalizations; solutions generated by application of rules or procedures; answers of higher levels of cognition.	13
4	Respond – Restricted Thinking: Result from restricted thinking – factual knowledge; an accepted or pre-determined correct answer; facts previously learned or easy to produce; lower level of participation.	14
5	Respond - Expanded Thinking: Result from expanded thinking-open ended responses; generations and application of principles, concepts and generalizations; solutions generated by application of rules or procedures; answers to how, why, what do you think?; higher levels of cognition.	15
6	React – Maintain Level of Participation: Verbal behaviour that maintains current level of thinking; invitation to continue thinking, amplify, clarify or summarize ideas at the same or a lower level of cognition.	16
7	React- Extended Level of Participation: Verbal behaviour that extends current levels of thinking-request for further information; generation of data or principles or reconsideration of ideas requiring increased complexity of thinking; obvious utilization of information supplied by another, where level of cognitive participation is raised.	17
8	React – Terminate Level of Participation: Verbal behaviour that brings current topic or thought to a close termination of responses through comment or intervention; indication that thought sequence is ended; change or introduction of new topic; summation or relationship building activity when new learning is related to old.	18
9	Structure – Learning Activities: Comments that organize learning activities – comments, directions, assignments.	19
10	Structure – Pause – Silence: Absence of verbalizations utilized to promote the sequence planned.	20

Limitations of E.T.C

            The system of E.T.C presents no standard and passes no judgement. It simply makes possible the classification of verbal behaviours so that teaching strategies may be studied in terms of performance as well as theory.

behaviors indicates taking a leadership role in small group interaction.

9.      Verbal Interaction Category System (VICS)

            VERBAL INTERACTION CATEGORY SYSTEM (VICS)

The verbal interaction category system VICS developed by Amidon and Hunter 1967 is an extension of Flander’s system of ten categories. It contains five major categories for analysing verbal behaviour as follows;

Teacher initiated talk

1. Gives information or opinion

2. Gives direction

3. Ask narrow questions

4. Ask broad questions

Teacher response

5. Accepts

a. Ideas

b. Behaviour

c. Feeling

6. Rejects

a. Ideas

b. Behaviour

c. Feeling

Pupil response

7. Responds to teacher

a. Predictably

b. Unpredictably

8. Responds to another pupil

Pupil initiated task

9. Initiates talk to teacher

10. Initiates talk to another pupil

Other

11. Silence

12. Confusion

As in the FIAC a category is tallied every 3 seconds, in sequence, in columns. The pace of recording is thus the same as in the FIAC. Finally, however, the VICS observations are entered in a 17 row by 17 col matrix for summary, review and reconstruction of the verbal phenomenon observed. As in the FIAC the VICS matrix too has certain significant areas, where the relatively high tally concentrations occurring would refer to unusual aspects in the verbal communication.

10.  Bale’s Interaction Process Categories (BIPC).

Bales' Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) is a classic in the study of small group interaction. His research investigates measures of leadership in small, that is, face-to-face groups. In a much simplified form the categories of observable leadership he used were:

§  Instrumental leadership. Leadership focussed on getting the group's task done.

·         Giving information.

·         Explaining.

·         Summarizing.

·         Making suggestions.

·         Asking for information.

·         Asking for details.

·         Asking through hypotheticals, what if's.

·         Asking for clarification.

·         Socio-emotional leadership. Leadership focussed on holding the group together as a group.

·         Positive reinforcement.

·         Good idea remarks.

·         "Good dog" remarks.

·         Acknowledgment of individual concerns.

·         Intervention to clarify disagreements to maintain and/or reintroduce positive atmosphere.

·         Recognition of contributions to group tasks, instrumental or socio-emotional.

·         Negative socio-emotional leadership behaviors.

·         Setting rules for mutual respect when necessary.

·         Chastising violations of rules of respect.

·         Defining and/or enforcing limits on group and individual behavior.

·         Defining and/or enforcing standards for group tolerance of differences between group members.

These behavioral measures should be useful to you in composing your written submissions for the site. Bear in mind that each of these