Change and Continuity in the Primary School: The Research Evidence

Since the publication of the Plowden Report in 1967, the study of teaching, based upon empirical investigations of classroom practice, has been one of the major growth areas in educational research. Most of the British studies, particularly those using "direct" or systematic observation as the major research technique, have been conducted in primary classrooms [20; 25]. Although the reasons for this focus on primary teaching were largely pragmatic (with one teacher per class it was easier and cheaper to obtain a reasonable number of observations), undoubtedly the controversies which developed in the wake of the publication of the Plowden Report stimulated and to a certain extent directed attention to a number of issues related to teaching methods in informally organized classrooms. Chief among these issues was the shift toward individualization of the learning process and the change in organizational structure of the classroom which could enable a teacher to achieve this objective. While the Report never ...