A multi-element analysis of the effect of teacher aides in an "open"-style classroom.
A helping adult aide can double class-wide math output in open elementary rooms.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team ran a multielement test in an open-plan fifth-grade room.
They rotated three kinds of aides: a helping adult, a disciplinarian adult, and a trained fifth-grade peer.
Each aide worked with the whole class for set blocks while kids did math and reading sheets.
The researchers counted how many problems kids finished and how long they stayed on task.
What they found
Any aide beat no aide.
The helping adult gave the biggest jump: kids finished about twice as many math problems.
On-task time also rose for every aide type, but the helping adult again led the pack.
Even the fifth-grade helper lifted work output, though less than the adults.
How this fits with other research
Rosenfeld et al. (1970) showed that plain teacher praise can raise attending in one disruptive child. The 1977 study widens the lens: an extra helping adult lifts work for the whole class, not just the target kid.
Jackson et al. (2022) later proved you can boost engagement without extra staff by simply moving furniture. Together the papers say: add people if you can, but if you can’t, rearrange the room.
Pitetti et al. (2007) moved the support idea into foster homes, training peers to tutor math. Their peer gains echo the fifth-grade aide gains here, showing peer power travels beyond the classroom.
Why it matters
If you run an open elementary classroom, park a trained helping aide in the room for even part of the day. You should see more work finished and less wandering. No aide budget? Combine the lesson from Jackson et al. (2022): move desks to cut traffic lanes and face kids toward the board. Either way, you lift academic output without changing the lesson plan.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Open classrooms with few rules, individualized instruction, and informal class organization present new problems for the application of behavior principles. The effects of three types of teacher aides on student achievement and on-task behavior were studied. Each was compared with a standard no-aide condition. Subjects were 54 third graders in two "open"-style classrooms. The three types of aide, helping adult, disciplinary adult, and helping fifth-grade aide, were compared in a multi-element design with a no-aide control. The helping-adult aide significantly affected the academic output of the class, when compared with the no-aide condition. All aide conditions produced more academic work and on-task behavior than did the standard no-aide condition.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1977 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1977.10-437