Using Video Surveys to Compare Classrooms and Teaching Across Cultures--Stigler et al

With regard to my analysis of classroom practices in rural China my committee has requested that I consider the extent to which classroom practices, and particularly those in mathematics, are more creative and interactive than those in American classrooms to begin with. They recommended that I look at the TIMSS studies. This is an excellent suggestion and i have been meaning to look more at this work all along. I would love to somehow get involved in analysis of this data. I should look into how to gain some kind of affiliation.

Here is a link... it looks like all the data is available online for analysis!

http://timss.bc.edu/

perhaps i can get some of my students involved in some collaborative analysis of that.

Anyhow...back to the dissertation revisions...

This article provides some very fascinating advice on the use of video surveys to compare classrooms across cultures.

Stigler, J. W., Gallimore, R., & Hiebert, J. (2000). Using Video Surveys to Compare Classrooms and Teaching Across Cultures: Examples and Lessons From the TIMSS Video Studies. Educational Psychologist, 35(2), 87-100.

The article discusses the value of comparing classrooms across cultures: academic achievement differs across cultures, offers potential of learning more effective practices, sheds light on taken for granted practices.

the article then takes a little detour into a review of cross cultural studies in learning and development in the anthropological literature, classroom ethnography (cites Cazden and Erickson as early researchers studing classrooms as cultural contexts), the history of International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) which started survey work to compare academic achievement across cultures. IEA was aiming for an integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches and thus the "video survey was born"...

there is an explanation of the probability sampling method, and also a list of the advantages and limitations of the video survey.

the writers then provide two examples for analysis: the TIMSS video study and the TIMSS-R video study.

in the study of eighth grade mathematics classrooms in Japan, Germany and the US the researchers found that in Germany and Japan students were more likely to be asked to develop procedures themselves as opposed to in the US where teachers would teach the students the procedures...also in Japan a higher proportion of seatwork was reserved for application and invetion than in germany or in the US.

this article is an excellent example of mixed methods... see page 95 regarding the extent to which both quant and qual research reinforce each other.

there is also a discussion of various iterative characteristics of their coding and analysis from bottom up and top down approaches and the continual reevaluation of coding and analysis.