Using Stimulated Recall in Classroom Observation and Professional Development.

This study investigated whether stimulated recall could facilitate the transfer of expertise through the provision of models of expert special educators in real-world context to student teachers. Participants were 19 special education teachers with at least 5 years of experience who were recognized as superior special education teachers by their supervisors. Data, which included interviews, videotaping, and observations, were collected by five different researchers. After each observation and videotaping a stimulated recall procedure took place with the teacher to obtain reflections about the classroom interactions or consultations. Field notes and transcripts added to knowledge about the content and nature of instructional thinking by these expert special education teachers. In the second phase of the project 33 preservice special education teachers participated. Fourteen of these students received supplemental training developed from the first phase of the study, and the other 19 served as a control group. Stimulated recall was also used with the experimental and control groups after they had spent 2 months at their student teaching placements. Findings show that it was possible to design contextually rich cases of effective special educators and to use these in instruction for preservice teachers. Both expert teachers and preservice teachers became comfortable with the stimulated recall technique. The technique is easily implemented and requires a minimum of supervision on the part of the teacher educator while producing a maximum opportunity for reflective thought. (Contains 23 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 1 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED B'Y TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement rUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Using Stimulated Recall in Classroom Observation and Professional Development Laura M. Stough, Ph.D. Department of Educational Psychology Texas AM Marland 1984). Many of these researchers used stimulated recall as their primary data source for information about teacher cognition. In this tradition, the teacher was either audiotaped or videotaped while engaging in instruction. The recall session was then conducted after the recording had taken place. Teachers were then asked to retrospectively selfreport on their thought processes during the recorded session. These responses were simultaneously recorded on audiotape and usually transcribed by the researcher. Transcripts varied in length, depending on the length of the sessions that were recorded, but even a thirtyminute recall session could easily generate over 20 pages of double-spaced comments. A number of both qualitative and quantitative methods have been used to analyze transcripts resulting from stimulated recall session. Transcripts may be analyzed in a line-by-line fashion in which the researcher labels themes or categories thickly, or they may be analyzed using "thought-units" in which the researcher looks for larger categories in the data. Interactions occurring during the activity may be recorded and be used as the level of analysis, for example, each time a teacher calls on a student to answer a question the researcher may prompt the teacher to reflect on the resulting interaction. Precautions in Using Stimulated Recall Data Ericsson and Simon (1980; 1984) caution that stimulated recall procedures should be conducted as soon as possible after a task is completed as information which is established in long-term memory becomes not a direct report of the experience, rather a combination of the experience and other related memories. Ericsson and Simon, however, focused their comments on recall procedures that did not involve videotapes or other types of multimedia recall. The use of multimedia sources in recall session has the benefit of replaying and reintroducing the original cues that were present during the task in which the participant was engaged. What stimulates responses from the teacher is then a very similar set of cues as those that originally existed during the class session recorded. Yinger (1986), in noting the complexity of teacher cognition in the classroom, suggested that multimethods of data collection should be used to study teachers, including ethnography,