Investigating Instructor Talk in Novel Contexts: Widespread Use, Unexpected Categories, and an Emergent Sampling...

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Higher Education Pedagogy

Background:

• Instructor Talk, defined as noncontent language in classrooms, is a recent variable for understanding classroom dynamics.
• Previous research characterized the Instructor Talk framework within a single course context.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the applicability of the Instructor Talk framework to novel course contexts.
• To investigate the prevalence and types of Instructor Talk in biology courses.
• To identify new forms of Instructor Talk.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of Instructor Talk in eight entire biology courses.
• Application of an emergent sampling strategy to analyze Instructor Talk in 61 additional biology courses.
• Evaluation of the robustness of the original Instructor Talk framework.

Main Results:

• Widespread use of Instructor Talk was observed across diverse biology courses.
• The majority of Instructor Talk aligned with the original framework, indicating its robustness.
• A novel category, Negatively Phrased Instructor Talk, potentially hindering student learning, was identified.

Conclusions:

• The Instructor Talk framework is robust and applicable to various course contexts.
• Instructor Talk, including its negative forms, is a significant factor in higher education teaching and learning.
• The emergent sampling strategy facilitates large-scale investigation of Instructor Talk across disciplines.