The Development of Affective Skills: New Directions for Microteaching

Abstract

This article reports on the development and field testing of a program to prepare teachers in interpersonal skills .In this program eight affective or interpersonal skills that could be utilized by classroom teachers were identified The skills were organized in a microteaching format, each described in writing and modeled on videotape One group was compensed of nine teacher candidates who practiced three of these skills using the microteaching format. In Treatment I, a comparison group of nine teachers was taught the three skills through a conventional approach of classroom discussions .In Treatment II, each teacher then taught brief lessons to sixth-grade students demonstrating the skills .These lessons were videotaped and each of the three skills were evaluated along four affective measures, yielding twelve interpersonal skill measures. The results indicate that both groups improved their performance when compared to baseline data The Treatment I group rated higher than the Treatment II group on nine of the twelve measures employed, reaching statistical significance on three of the scales. The results, though tentative, suggest that through skill identification and traming, teachers can improve affective relationships with students.