The featured topic in this issue focuses on the classroom and begins to address the questions “How are teachers delivering instruction to students?” and “How does this contribute to our overall understanding of children’s educational success?” As pointed out by one of the commentators, the findings from the 1994–95 Teacher Follow-up Survey “are unique because they provide national estimates of the proportion of teachers from all grade levels and subject areas . . . who use various teaching strategies.” Indeed, good measures of classroom instructional practices might not only improve teaching but might also increase our understanding of the link between background factors and educational achievement. Recognizing the importance of this line of research, NCES is committed to expanding and improving the collection and analysis of data relevant to classroom instructional processes. The challenge of this pursuit for a statistical agency is that this information does not lend itself easily to traditional survey methodologies. Although the efforts we have made so far show promise, they do not yet provide the full range of information needed to adequately understand the process of teaching and learning in our nation’s classrooms. To expand this understanding, NCES is pushing ahead on several fronts.

Videotaping classroom activities has recently been incorporated into an NCES survey with promising results. The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) collected nationally representative videotaped records of eighth-grade mathematics lessons in Germany, Japan, and the United States. The next iteration of this study, TIMSS-R, is expanding on the first effort by including science classrooms, more countries, and a second camera in each classroom. The video components of TIMSS provide objective observational measures of classroom instruction. Videotaping will also be used in the Instructional Processes Research Program, the purpose of which is to test new ways of measuring what goes on in the classroom. Video will be used as a validation tool to help us understand the strengths and weaknesses of several measurement strategies.

NCES is also supporting the improvement of information on instructional practices through more traditional survey techniques. For example, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS) will collect information from teachers on their instructional practices through a teacher questionnaire. Research has shown that, while not as rich as direct observation or videotaping, teacher reports of classroom practice are generally accurate. These reports from teachers, in combination with comprehensive student data, will improve our understanding of how classroom instruction varies by teacher and how it relates to children’s success in school. We expect to capitalize on the longitudinal nature of the ECLS by studying whether and how the educational outcomes of individual students are related to basic instructional practices and classroom characteristics.

Three projects in the Instructional Processes Research Program will include the use of traditional survey techniques to collect data on teacher practices. One project will collect extremely detailed information on a limited set of aspects of classroom instruction. The goal is to trade breadth for depth and to probe more deeply into previous findings in order to identify important variations that have so far remained hidden. A second project will attempt to measure the extent to which instructional practice reflects efforts by teachers to work in a standards-based system, that is, to prepare students to meet demanding curricular standards. A third study builds on prior efforts to define and measure students’ opportunities to learn. For this study, two new measures will be developed to improve our understanding of the cognitive aspects of the learning process and modes of presentation used by teachers.

Finally, the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) will, for the first time, ask teachers a battery of questions that are designed to measure teaching practices in the classroom. The questions are very specific and ask, for example, about the number of minutes spent by the class in activities such as solving math story problems. The items measure not only the method used by the teacher but also the curriculum covered.

In a fourth Instructional Processes project, NCES plans to use daily instructional logs to gather information from teachers on classroom instruction. This activity will be designed to capture information on highly specific instructional activities undertaken by teachers as they instruct students on particular types of academic content. As with the other projects, these results will be compared with video studies to cross-validate the research methodologies used.