Instructional Bias: Ignoring One Side of the Classroom

Morton, L. L.; McLean, Mitchell; Kershner, John R.

doi:10.2466/pms.1986.63.2.639

Percept Mot Skills

1986

DOI: 10.2466/pms.1986.63.2.639

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Instructional Bias: Ignoring One Side of the Classroom

L. L. Morton¹,

Mitchell McLean²,

John R. Kershner

Abstract: A pronounced teaching bias away from the left side of the classroom (teacher's right) was observed in a time-sampling study of 19 teachers. Six male and 13 female teachers showed an instructional orientation toward the classroom right (teacher's left), and center. Teacher's relative inattention to students seated on the left of the classroom may be accounted for by teachers being conditioned to monitor students in the center and to the left, stable differences in left-right cerebral hemispheric attentional con… Show more

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1988

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Cited by 2 publications

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Eye Contact and Grade Distribution

Rennels

Chaudhari

1988

Percept Mot Skills

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While teaching a large lecture course of art appreciation, I investigated whether grades vary by section to section in the auditorium. The auditorium was divided into nine sections containing 20 students per section. Students were seated by alphabetized lists, by Social Security numbers, or by selecting seats they wished to sit in for the duration of that semester. Two tests were given to each class, one on required reading and one on the slide/lectures. Regardless of the method of seating, students in the middle and the front sections achieved scores considerably higher than those in the rear sections. Although the class who chose where they wanted to sit was factored out (because brighter students might choose to sit in front or middle rows), those classes assigned to seats by alphabetized lists and Social Security numbers gave the same results. The only apparent difference between the sections in the auditorium was instructor/students' eye contact, so apparently the students gained a sense of personalization through eye contact with the instructor.

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Eye Contact and Grade Distribution

Rennels

Chaudhari

1988

Percept Mot Skills

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Cognitive and Neuropsychological Response Asymmetries for Adults on the Left-Right Seating Axis

Morton

Wearne

Kershner

et al. 1993

International Journal of Neuroscience

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Six studies of the relationship between classroom seating and information processing were conducted with adult subjects. Findings converged to support a hemisphericity-based explanation of effects with right-side-sitters more inclined to a response style associated with the right hemisphere--perhaps, less analytical or less cautious in responding (Experiments 1-4), more "artistic" (Experiment 5), and less lateralized (Experiment 6), and vice versa for left side sitters. First, using incidental memory tasks, subjects (N = 164) with a right side seating preference (i.e., to the speaker's left side) were found, in their test-taking behavior, to respond more positively to inaccurate distractor words (Experiments 1 and 2), particularly those with an ambiguous semantic reference (Experiment 3). For different levels of processing, seating location did not influence auditory memory (Experiments 1 and 2) but right side sitters showed enhanced visual memory for accurate words (Experiment 3). In a sample of 366 subjects, males selecting right side seating were less successful on multiple-choice test performance (Experiment 4), but there were no Side differences in test taking speed or review time. In a sample of 286 subjects (Experiment 5), personality measures on the Vocational Preference Inventory revealed right sitters scored higher on the "Artistic" scale and on femininity on the Masculine-Feminine scale. The final study (N = 90) revealed reduced dichotic processing on verbal tasks (digits and voiced CVs) for right side sitters. Implications are discussed.

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Instructional Bias: Ignoring One Side of the Classroom

Cited by 2 publications

References 6 publications

Eye Contact and Grade Distribution

Eye Contact and Grade Distribution

Cognitive and Neuropsychological Response Asymmetries for Adults on the Left-Right Seating Axis

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