Abstract
Target students are defined as those who dominate interactions with the teacher, usually in whole-class interactions by asking and responding to questions. In this study of five Year 8 mathematics classes, approximately five target students were evident in three of five participant classes. The majority of the target students were high ability males. Target student involvement was facilitated by the behaviours of teachers and students and management problems which prevailed in each of the three classes. The two other classes provided a marked contrast to those which contained target students. In one class, the teacher systematically involved a larger number of students in whole-class interactions and, in the other, there were few whole-class interactions. The disproportionate involvement of target students is regarded as problematic because of the relatively high proportion of time allocated to whole-class activities.