Adult Education Instructional Environments and Interaction Patterns Between Teachers and Students: An ecobehavioural assessment

Abstract

Researchers who hope to develop improvements to adult basic education have very few quantitative studies on which to base their work. By conducting an ecobehavioural assessment of two adult education programs, this study provides empirical data describing two programs that primarily use one-to-one instructional methods. A significant discernible portion of the observations identified lost instructional time - time when teachers were not focused on students, no discernible subject was being instructed, no identifiable materials were being used, and teacher behaviours as well as student behaviours did not correspond to any of the recognised categories related to learning and instruction.