Teacher awareness of classroom dyadic interactions

Systematic classroom observation has frequently been used to provide teachers with feedback as to the type and frequency of their interactions with students. This process assumes that teachers are unaware of their interaction patterns; however, this assumption has seldom been tested directly. In order to test this hypothesis, the interactions between teachers and individual students in 30 classrooms were observed. Immediately following these observations teachers were asked to estimate the frequency of occurrence of various types of interactions. The results indicated a general lack of awareness of the frequency of occurrence of the types of interactions observed.