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In general, it is a difficult task to gear classroom teaching to achieve optimal student comprehension. This problem could be largely avoided if the teacher were able to make accurate judgments of student comprehension a t various critical points during the lesson.The present investigators, in a previous article (in press), have shown that such judgments can be made with significant accuracy when verbal feedback from the students is available. During the ordinary classroom presentfation of a lesson, however, the teacher must rely predominantly on non-verbal feedback-facial expressions and various bodily movements. The previous research referred to above found no evidence that such non-verbal feedback is being currently used successfully in judging student comprehension.It was our belief that non-verbal feedback should provide some useful cues for making such judgments. The present article reports an attempt to discover useful non-verbal cues and train teachers to use them. METHODSound-film recordings were made of individual students while they were being taught by their regulsr teachers. The teachers were our subjects. These films were then scored for student comprehension and used as test materials in testing our subjects' ability to judge student comprehension. The procedure followed was one of pretest, followed by training, followed in turn by posttesting. Subjectstraining program in the School of Education a t Stanford University served as subjects.* Collecting the Film MaterialsSince it was necessary to collect films in 20 different classrooms during instruction by 20 different teachers, it seemed desirable to reduce the variability of some aspects of the lesson being taught. Also, since the films were to be used as test materials for judging student comprehension, we needed some method of independently assessing the degree of actual student comprehension. To satisfy these two needs, all teachers were provided with a standard program of instruction to present to their students while we filmed. This program consisted of 35 items of instruction in the field of anthropology, on the concept of familial structure. B and large, this material had not been taught previously to any of the students being filmed, and the Lvel of difficulty was appropriate for our purposes. The information was presented verbally by the teacher in a manner approximating normal classroom teaching techniqiies. Immediately after the teacher presented each item of information, she posed a question to the students concerning that item. The students were provided with answer sheets and recorded their own answers.Each question was presented on one of a set of large cards mounted on an easel at the front of the class. Strtdents were requested to reserve any questions they had until the lesson had been completed, thus minimizing verbal feedback from students to teacher. Each question card had a set of multiplechoice type answers, the last of which was "I don't know." Students were instructed to answer each question as best they could, and to use ...

The relative value of verbal and nonverbal cues in teacher accuracy in making judgments of student comprehension was tested. 67 new interns (not yet teachers), 59 inexperienced teachers, and 46 experienced teachers were each shown 20 short sound-film recordings of 10 students being taught. They rated student comprehension. 57 Ss heard both picture and sound, 60 heard sound only, and 55 saw only the picture. When sound is absent, all groups of teachers are inaccurate in judging student comprehension (about 3 correct with I the chance base). When sound is present, whether or not the picture is seen, all groups exceed chance (about § correct), but do not differ significantly from each other. The need for research on teacher training in the observation and interpretation of nonverbal feedback from students is indicated.

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