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1979 49: 631REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHHoward A. Smith

Nonverbal Communication in Teaching

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Review of Educational Research Fall, 1979, Vol 49, No. 4, Pp. 631-672

Nonverbal Communication in Teaching

Howard A. Smith

Queen's University

The important role played by nonverbal communication in the teaching process *is emphasized. Following a discussion of semantic issues and general nonverbal research, school-related research is reviewed under seven categories of nonverbal communication: environmental factors, proxemics, kinesics, touching behavior, physical characteristics, paralanguage, and artifacts. Characteristics of general educational theory and the process-product paradigm are outlined and the relationship of nonverbal research to these areas is discussed. Finally, several technological and statistical concerns are presented.

During the past 15 years, an increasing amount of research has examined the influence of the nonverbal domain on interpersonal communication. Most of this work has been done by anthropologists, communication theorists, and psychologists, and usually the results have been of most immediate interest to those particular disciplines. Increasingly, however, the role of nonverbal communication has also been examined for its significance within educational settings. The main aims of this review are to present the major topics of previous research in the nonverbal domain, to examine studies of nonverbal communication in the classroom, and to outline promising strategies and tactics for future educational research in nonverbal communication.

The review will be conducted with several restrictions in mind. First, the literature to be surveyed will place particular emphasis on nonverbal communication in classroom studies of children from kindergarten to grade 13. On occasion, research at the prekindergarten and postsecondary levels will be included when fairly direct implications follow for the elementary or secondary school settings.

I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of this project which was provided by the Queen's University Advisory Research Committee and the Queen's Faculty of Education. I thank Dean Arthur Coladarci for sponsoring my stay at the Stanford University School of Education, where this work was conducted.

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Second, the review will focus on "normal" subjects in relatively "normal" situations. Accordingly, the vast bodies of literature on nonverbal communication in each of the following areas will not be considered here: (a) autistic or schizophrenic subjects, (b) special education settings, (c) counseling or psychoanalytic situations, and (d) theatrical or dramatic techniques.

Some of the topics to be examined in varying detail are cultural differences, use of physical and personal space, body motion and gestures, use of face and eyes, vocal qualitites, and physical characteristics. Pertinent references will be drawn from the disciplines of anthropology, communication, psychology, and sociology as well as from education. Some attention will be given to the currently predominant educational research paradigm and how that paradigm can be related to the study of nonverbal communication in teaching. Finally, some mention will be made of the technological and statistical considerations which may help guide future research in the area.

Significance of Nonverbal Communication in Teaching

The important role played by nonverbal communication in any society has been discussed from a variety of perspectives (cf., Argyle, 1975; Hall, 1966, 1976; Harrison & Crouch, 1975; Knapp, 1978; Morris, 1977). For example, Harrison and Crouch (1975) suggested that the verbal symbol was only the tip of the communication iceberg and that, "in the development of each human being, nonverbal communication precedes and perhaps structures all subsequent communication" (p. 77). The authors then went on to show that nonverbal symbols are everywhere, even though we tend to use verbal forms for our most formal communications. While making a related point concerning the evolution of language, Nolan (1975) concluded that the many theories of language evolution had one important argument in common: "Nonverbal behavior precedes verbal behavior in the evolution of communication" (p. 101).

As a result of his many experiments, Mehrabian (1968) was able to specify relative values for the components of a communication: "Total Impact = .07 verbal + .38 vocal + .55 facial" (p. 53). Subsequently, he used versions of this formula to try to achieve the resolution of inconsistent messages: Total liking or feeling = 7% verbal liking or feeling + 38% vocal liking or feeling + 55% facial liking or feeling (Mehrabian, 1971, pp. 43-44). The significant feature of Mehrabian's formulation was the relatively small impact of the verbal message and the overwhelming influence of the nonverbal message (i.e., 7% vs. 93%) on an interpersonal communication. Although studies based in other settings have reached slightly different conclusions regarding the relative weights of verbal and nonverbal messages (cf, Balzer, 1969; Keith, Tornatzky, & Pettigrew, 1974), the importance of the nonverbal domain for communicative purposes apparently remains beyond question.

What does classroom teaching have to do with communication in general and nonverbal communication in particular? Most educators would probably have an immediate response to only the first part of the question. From his anthropological perspective, Montagu (1967) stated that the main purpose of education is to teach the art of communication since the child learns to become human through communication. Most of us would agree that the nonverbal is an essential part of the communicative act. Victoria (1970) commented further: "The process of education

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NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION IN TEACHING

essentially is a communication process, not only in that sense of transmitting knowledge, but more particularly as it relates to interpersonal communication behaviors" (p. 4); and "nonverbal phenomena become qualitatively predominant aspects of interpersonal relationships. These interpersonal relationships are critical aspects of all learning situations" (p. 3). A related sentiment was voiced by French (1970): "The data clearly show that what teachers do is as important as what they say, and that there is no direct relationship between verbal and nonverbal influence" (p. 25).

Accordingly, the teaching process may be described as an interpersonal flow of information or communications which results consecutively in the processing of the information, decision-making, and learning which may be cognitive, affective, or psychomotor in nature. Because of the central role played by communication in educational practice, several writers have suggested that communication skills be taught to students or teachers and that nonverbal training be an essential part of this instruction (e.g., Gray, 1973; Hennings, 1975; Rezmierski, 1974). Similarly, Victoria (1971) proposed that teachers should study qualitative aspects of the affective domain so as to better understand students. The latter suggestion seems most appropriate in view of Davitz's (1964) pioneering work which demonstrated that emotional meanings could be communicated accurately in a variety of nonverbal media and that "nonverbal emotional communication is a stable, measurable phenomenon" (p. 178).

The need to make teachers explicitly aware of nonverbal facets of communication has been stressed recently by a number of researchers (e.g., Galloway, 1968, 1970, 1974a; Koch, 1971b; Montagu, 1967; Ostler & Kranz, 1976). In part, these declarations seem to be reactions against the usual emphasis on verbal classroom processes and the almost total neglect of ever-present nonverbal behaviors. It has been reported often that "teachers talk too much" and that classroom teaching conforms to the "rule of two-thirds" (i.e., someone is talking for two-thirds of the total class time, and two-thirds of that talking is done by the teacher). However, whether teachers are talking or not, they are always communicating. Their movements, gestures, tones of voice, dress and other artifacts, and even their ages and physiques are continuously communicating something to the students. In like manner, students are continuously communicating with their teachers, a point too often missed by teachers relying solely on the verbal message for informational purposes.

The lack of nonverbal awareness on the part of some teachers has been detected by at least one investigator. From his work with elementary schools in both low and middle socioeconomic areas, G. L. Davis (1974) found that the first-grade teachers were unaware of their nonverbal influence on young pupils. If this result characterizes a typical state of affairs, then the need to educate teachers about nonverbal awareness becomes more obvious and Galloway's (1976) observation becomes particularly relevant: "It can be assumed that the more information a person possesses about himself and others, the more humanely he will behave" (p. 15).

Other studies have established the importance of nonverbal communication in teaching. For example, Keith et al. (1974) determined that the nonverbal component of a classroom communication was more important than the verbal component. In his descriptive investigation, Balzer (1969) unexpectedly found nonverbal behaviors occurring in over 65% of all behaviors encoded and was led to conclude that "an awareness by the teacher of this remarkable proportion of nonverbal behaviors should serve at least to make him more sensitive to possible influences of his

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nonverbal behaviors on the students and the learning environment. It is apparent that more detailed analyses of nonverbal teacher behaviors are needed" (p. 229).

An additional stimulus to the direct study of nonverbal classroom processes is the recent data indicating that when teachers hold differing philosophies of human nature, their nonverbal classroom behaviors also differ in systematic ways (cf., Dobson, Hopkins, & Elsom, 1973; Hopkins, 1974). For example, Hopkins (1974) found that teachers with a more positive view of humanity used nonverbal communicative acts which encouraged student involvement in classroom interaction, while teachers with a negative view of humanity tended to use nonverbal communicative acts which discouraged student involvement.

In summary, the significant role played by nonverbal communication in classroom processes has been emphasized. The argument has been made that communication underlies teaching, that the nonverbal domain is an essential part of communication, and that many teachers display too little awareness of nonverbal behavior in their teaching practices.

Communication: A Semantic Issue

Unfortunately, the word communication has often meant different things to different people and has been used interchangeably with, or differentiated from, other terms such as: information, behavior, language, talk, and interaction. In the following discussion, an attempt will be made to outline several contrasting definitions of communication and to present as clearly as possible the interpretations to be used in this report.

Several of the terms mentioned above will be treated only summarily here. For example, the word interaction is seen to be uniquely applicable to an interpersonal situation in which there is mutual influence. Communication is viewed as a more inclusive term which, for example, incorporates the perceptions derived from observing a physical space such as a cluttered classroom in which no one is present but the viewer.

Although the words talk and language have been used in discussions of nonverbal communication, it is maintained that both terms are more applicable to verbal phenomena or speech by virtue of their customary definitions and respective geneses. Montagu's (1967) distinctions are helpful in this regard:

It is important to distinguish between communication, language, and speech. These words may, of course, be used synonymously, but strictly speaking communication refers to the transmission or reception of a message, while language, which is usually used interchangeably with speech, is here taken to mean the speech of a population viewed as an objective entity, whether reduced to writing or in any other form Communication, then, includes all those processes by which people influence one another, speech being the most important of all the special forms of influencing human beings, (p. 451)

As used in this review, the word communication is more comprehensive than both language and talk and may be applied to both verbal and nonverbal domains.

While Montagu's statement serves to clarify part of the semantic argument, it also raises and leaves unanswered several other critical points: Must communication be a conscious process conducted in the full awareness of both sender and receiver and,

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closely related, must elements of a given message be encoded by a sender and decoded by a receiver before the message can be labeled as a communication? Montagu appears to favor the conscious involvement of communicators, but this precise issue has been the subject of some debate.

Galloway (1972a) apparently regarded conscious intent on the part of the sender as one characteristic of communication when he stated: "Nonverbal communication implies that information is available at a level of awareness and that a conscious effort is made to transmit a message" (p. 13). At the same time, Galloway made a distinction between information and communication by claiming that "nonverbal information is always available in some form, but information is not always communication" (p. 13).

Argyle (1975) distinguished communication from two other terms, sign and signal, by appealing to the level of awareness exhibited by the sender, or encoder, of the message; "For communication proper there are goal-directed signals, whereas signs are simply behavioural or physiological responses. In communication there is awareness of others as beings who understand the code which is being used" (p. 5). He indicated further that the same signal could be used as a communication or a sign, but that it was very difficult to decide whether a given signal was intended to communicate or not. However, Argyle then added to the semantic difficulties by suggesting that nearly all nonverbal communication was characterized by a "mostly unaware" sender and a "mostly aware" receiver (p. 13).

The same issue was discussed at length by Wiener, Devoe, Rubinow, and Geller (1972). In general, the Wiener group felt that most sources using the word communication were focusing solely on the decoding done by the receiver of a message and were thereby excluding the previous encoding achieved by the sender. Wiener et al. maintained that the word sign should be used instead of communication in this instance and that "for us, 'sign' implies only an observer making an inference from, or assigning some significance to, an event or behavior, while 'communication' implies (a) a socially shared signal system, that is, a code, (b) an encoder who makes something public via that code, and (c) a decoder who responds systematically to that code" (p. 186). These authors then went on to maintain that awareness, or conscious encoding (and presumably conscious decoding), is necessary for communication to occur. However, Wiener et al. did present a qualifying footnote which is most relevant in the present context:

While we will go to considerable length to distinguish sign and communication behavior, this distinction is important only if the concern of the investigator is with communication per se. If the concern is with understanding the behavior of a particular individual, signs and communications may be equally valuable data sources, and the distinction between these two sets is not very relevant. If, however, the concern is with communication—that is, a system independent of particular individuals or particular referents—then these distinctions are important, (p. 186)

A viewpoint contrary to that of Wiener et al. was assumed by Koch (1971a) who stated that "neither the sender nor the receiver needs to understand the message, or even be aware of it, in order for it to be called language [used interchangeably with communication]. Nonverbal messages abound, and we 'read' a lot of them without being aware of doing so" (p. 288). Nolan (1975) similarly played down the role of

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awareness in communication by assuming that "people have different amounts of intention or awareness invested in the messages they propose. We may fully intend and remain carefully aware of each word we utter, but in monitoring what we say we may not pay attention to the gestures we use to emphasize a point, or the inflections of our voice, or the number of times we look at the person listening to us" (p. 106).

The position to be adopted in this review is that total awareness by either sender or receiver is not necessary for a communication to take place. Encoding may or may not be involved and conscious decoding may or may not occur in a given communicative act. The sender of a message may be conveying much more (or less) than he or she intends, while the receiver may not be able to express verbally the total impact of the message derived. In even the simplest of verbal exchanges, there is no assurance that the decoder has "properly" decoded the information which was previously encoded. Although the notion of "unaware communication" may not be universally endorsed, it would seem to provide the most realistic starting point for understanding human nonverbal communication.

Other semantic points concern the relationships among the terms communication, behavior, and information. Although some sources (e.g., Barker & Collins, 1970) feel that nonverbal communication is more generic than nonverbal behavior and should subsume the latter term in any classification system, a majority of writers seem to favor equating the two expressions. These views are typically stated as follows: "Communication (or communicative behavior) will be defined as any behavior which stimulates meaning in a person who perceives that behavior given this definition of communication, the terms behavior and communication can be used simultaneously" (Wiemann & Wiemann, 1975, pp. 1-2); "communication exists as long as a response is elicited, and this response can be either internal or external" (Dance, 1967b, p. 305); and "for these reasons communication and behavior are inseparable. Behavior is communication and communication is behavior. To think of one without the other is naive" (Hanneman, 1975b, p. 22). For purposes of this report, no distinction will be made between communication and behavior. It is believed that any behavior or nonbehavior, such as silence, has communication potential for the observer in the sense that he or she can derive meaning from any act or nonact.

Similarly, attempts to distinguish between the words information and communication have also been made (e.g., MacKay, 1972). However, given the present state of our knowledge, the value of making such a distinction would seem to be more illusory than real. The position to be endorsed in this paper is similar to that enunciated by Exline (1976):

In short, how pragmatically useful is the distinction between "informative" and "communicative"? If one desires to influence another's thinking or action and transmits messages to that end, the unintentional "informative" aspect of the message may be just as important as the intentional "communicative'* aspect of the message in effecting the understanding that the target derives from the message. Whether or not the nonverbal aspects of the message are designated as informative or communicative . . . would seem to be less important than the fact that they are an integral part of the total message as perceived by the recipient of the message, (p. 740)

Accordingly, this review will use the word communication to describe the process by which the recipient of an act or message, whether sent deliberately or not, derives

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meaning which in some way affects his or her subsequent internal or external behavior. The terms behavior and information will be seen as synonymous with communication insofar as practical implications are concerned.

In a somewhat similar manner, the meaning of "nonverbal" could be discussed at some length, although there seems to be more general agreement about its terms of reference. In this review, the word nonverbal will be used to specify all those elements of a communication which are not essentially linguistic in nature.

Even though the total impact of most messages depends on both verbal, or linguistic, and nonverbal aspects, the intent of this report is to isolate the nonverbal elements of communication as much as possible and to examine those elements in some detail. Given the broad definitions of the words nonverbal and communication which have been accepted here, the combined term nonverbal communication will be used to touch a wide variety of studies within the guidelines established previously.

The Nonverbal Communication Literature

As outlined above, facets of nonverbal communication have been subjected to speculations and investigations in a variety of disciplines. The purpose of this section of the review is to denote many of the standard references and some of the classification systems used by researchers in the areas of psychology and anthropology. However, a number of topics generally associated with nonverbal communication will not be considered here: linguistics, mass media, attitude change, politics, social implications, world public opinion, propaganda, technology, organization theory, clinical science and psychotherapy, philosophy, animal communication, and advertising. These areas are treated at length in several admirable collections of readings (e.g., Dance, 1967a; Emmert & Brooks, 1970; Hanneman & McEwen, 1975; Matson & Montagu, 1967; Pool, Frey, Schramm, Maccoby, & Parker, 1973; Smith, 1966; Thayer, 1967) and, in any case, tend not to be of direct relevance to classroom teaching practices.

During the past few years, various texts aimed at the popular market (e.g., Davis, 1973; Fast, 1970; Nierenberg & Calero, 1971) have attempted to survey research in nonverbal communication in a concise and easily read manner. These efforts have not met with universal acclaim (cf., Koivumaki, 1975), but they have served to make the public aware of the nonverbal element-in human communication.

Many other references have been written for the scholar of nonverbal communication and have generally provided more comprehensive reviews of research associated with various topics (cf., Argyle, 1975; Burgoon & Saine, 1978; Davitz, 1964; Duncan, 1969; Ekman, 1977; Geldard, 1968; Harper, Wiens, & Matarazzo, 1978; Harrison, 1973, 1974; Harrison, Cohen, Crouch, Genova, & Steinberg, 1972; Harrison & Crouch, 1975; Harrison & Knapp, 1972; Hinde, 1972; Knapp, 1978; Knapp & Harrison, 1972; Leathers, 1976; Mehrabian, 1971; Montagu, 1971; Morris, 1977; Scheflen, 1973; Sommer, 1969; Weitz, 1974). Other publications have been more closely identified with various components of nonverbal communication, such as proxemics (e.g., Aiello & Aiello, 1974; Blumenthal & Reiss, 1975; Hall, 1966, 1976; Watson, 1972), kinesics (e.g., Birdwhistell, 1970; Ekman & Friesen, 1972; French, 1973; Hayes, 1975; Key, 1970; Kumin & Lazar, 1974; Rickford & Rickford, 1974; A. R. Taylor, 1975; Wiener et al., 1972), face and eyes (e.g., Allen & Feldman, 1975; Argyle & Cook, 1976; Boucher & Ekman, 1975; Ekman, 1971, 1973, 1978; Ekman

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& Friesen, 1975; Exline, 1971, Ford, 1975), paralanguage (e.g., Starkweather, 1961), and cultural differences (e.g., Ford, 1975; Morsbach, 1973; H. M. Taylor, 1975).

A range of more specific topics has also been studied: verbal-nonverbal incongruity (Beier, 1974), the role of clothes (Fowles, 1974), silence (Jensen, 1973), deception (Knapp, Hart, & Dennis, 1973), nonverbal persuasion (Merriam, 1975), extrasensory perception (Schneider, 1971), developmental issues (Abecassis, 1975-1976; Dittman, 1972), time (Baxter & Ward, 1973; Hall, 1966, 1976), and tests of nonverbal awareness (e.g., Buck, 1976; Leathers, 1976; Rosenthal, Archer, DiMatteo, Koivumaki, & Rogers, 1974).

Extensive bibliographies have been prepared (cf., Davis, 1972; Thornton, 1972), and several journals such as the Journal of Communication, Semiotica, and Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior have carried many relevant articles for the student of nonverbal behavior. Occasionally, special issues such as the December 1972 issue of the Journal of Communication are devoted exclusively to topics in nonverbal communication.

No attempt will be made here to review the plethora of findings from the general areas of nonverbal communication. That task has already been conducted admirably by many of the authors listed above. Rather, the intent is to list several category systems used to classify nonverbal research and then to review only those studies with fairly direct implications for educational practice.

Categories of Nonverbal Communication

As discussed previously, the term nonverbal communication will be applied to a wide variety of subjects. Broad coverage has tended to characterize the nonverbal literature because of the many ways in which researchers have made contact with the area of study. Depending on one's perspective, the method of categorizing nonverbal communication can assume many forms.

Several authors have developed fairly extensive lists of relevant topics. For example Barker and Collins (1970) presented 18 categories to describe the domain: (a) animal and insect, (b) culture, (c) environmental surroundings, (d) gestural, facial expression, bodily movement, and kinesic, (e) human behavior, (f) interaction patterns, (g) learning, (h) machine, (i) media, (j) mental processes, perception, imagination, and creativity, (k) music, (1) paralinguistic, (m) personal grooming and apparel, (n) physiological, (o) pictures, (p) space, (q) tactile and cutaneous, and (r) time.

In his classification of human nonverbal behaviors, Koch (1975) also proposed a large number of divisions: (a) all types of gestures, (b) posture, (c) eyes, (d) skin changes, (e) proximity, (0 tactility, (g) voice tone, intonation, volume, pitch, hesitations, and quivering, (h) dress, (i) breathing, (j) time, (k) materials, (1) methods, and (m) actions. A slightly different approach was taken by Cook (1971) who described two major categories of cues: static nonverbal cues which do not change during an interpersonal encounter, and dynamic nonverbal cues which do change. Under the former heading, Cook noted the subcategories of (a) face, (b) physique, (c) voice, (d) clothes and other man-made adornments, (e) makeup, and (f) hair style. Under the category of dynamic nonverbal cues, Cook listed (a) orientation, (b) distance, (c) posture, (d) gesture, (e) diffuse body movement, (f) facial expression, (g) gaze direction, (h) tone of voice, and (i) rate, amount, and fluency of speech.

In his excellent review of the nonverbal communication literature, Duncan (1969)

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classified references under the following six headings: (a) body motion or kinesic behavior, (b) paralanguage, (c) proxemics, (d) olfaction, (e) skin sensitivity, and (f) use of artifacts.

Harrison (1973, 1974) chose to categorize nonverbal "codes" into four divisions based primarily on how the code elements are produced: (a) performance codes, which are produced with the body, (b) artifactual codes, which involve the manipulation of objects such as clothing and furniture, (c) mediatory codes, which involve the media, and (d) contextual or spatiotemporal codes, which are concerned primarily with the use of space and time. Harrison also specified the different modalities, codes, and functions which characterize various nonverbal "signs," while Harrison and Crouch (1975) made a distinction between messages of relationship, of which many are passed nonverbally, and messages of content, of which a majority are probably verbal in nature.

Yet another classification system was described by Wiemann and Wiemann (1975) who listed categories in order from minimal overt impact on the production and interpretation of verbal messages to maximum overt impact: (a) the environment and personal space, (b) body movement and orientation, (c) the face and eyes, and (d) nonlanguage vocal behavior.

In his recent text, Leathers (1976) perceived four major communication systems, of which the verbal system was one. The three remaining communication systems were essentially nonverbal in nature and consisted, in turn, of major subsystems: (a) the visual communication system, composed of kinesic, proxemic, and artifactual subsystems, (b) the auditory or vocalic communication system, and (c) the invisible communication system, composed of tactile, olfactory, and telepathic subsystems.

The final plan of classification to be considered here was described by Knapp (1978) who presented seven major categories: (a) environmental factors, consisting of elements impinging on the human relationship but not directly a part of it, such as furniture, architectural style, lighting, smells, colors, temperature, other noises, and traces of previous action; (b) proxemics, defined as the use and perception of one's social and personal space, such as in seating and spatial arrangements, territoriality, and conversational distance and orientation; (c) kinesics, described as body motions which include gestures, gross body movements, facial and eye behavior, posture, and movements of other body parts; (d) touching behavior, consisting of physical contact such as touching, stroking, hitting, greetings and farewells, holding, and guiding another's movements; (e) physical characteristics, comprising personal characteristics which are not movement bound such as physique, general attractiveness, body or breath odors, height, weight, and hair and skin color; (0 paralanguage, consisting of nonverbal vocal cues surrounding speech, such as voice pitch, volume, tempo and intensity, silent pauses, intruding sounds, and speech errors; and (g) artifacts, which are manipulated objects in contact with the interacting persons, such as perfume, clothes, lipstick, hair pieces, eyeglasses, and miscellaneous beauty aids.

In this report, the categories described by Knapp (1978) will be used to classify educational research on nonverbal processes. There are two practical reasons for choosing this system over the others described here. First, most of the relevant work can be identified readily with at least one of the seven categories and, second, the number of categories is large enough to make some basic distinctions among research emphases and is small enough to avoid severely fragmenting the area.

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Some important distinctions or classifications within several of these categories have been enunciated elsewhere (e.g., Birdwhistell, 1970; Ekman & Friesen, 1969, 1972; Hall, 1966; Hayes, 1975; Trager, 1958; Wiener et al., 1972) but will not concern us here. It is felt that, for most educational research in nonverbal communication, many of the finer distinctions are not yet necessary and in any case may not be of central interest to most classroom practices.

At this time, the point should be made that any effort to divide nonverbal communication into a variety of categories will be a somewhat artificial enterprise given the present state of our knowledge. The categories thus derived are not discrete, but instead act together in complex relationships which have yet to be specified. One aim of ongoing research in the area is to begin to designate these relationships.

Educational Research on Nonverbal Communication

The nonverbal literature reviewed thus far has its genesis primarily in the fields of anthropology and psychology, where research is currently proceeding to further delineate significant features of the nonverbal domain. However, the importance of nonverbal communication for education in general and teaching in particular has been recognized increasingly during the past 15 years. For instance, several authors have emphasized that educators should become more aware of this often neglected component (e.g., Bishop, 1976; Galloway, 1968, 1970, 1974a; Lewis & Page, 1974; Roberts & Becker, 1976), while some notable efforts have been made to cover the many aspects of nonverbal communication in teaching (cf, the Fall 1971 and Summer 1977 issues of the journal Theory into Practice).

At the same time, reviews of the nonverbal literature have been conducted in order to apply concepts and findings from other areas to classroom practice (cf, Bachmann, 1973; Byers & Byers, 1972; Duke, 1973; Dunning, 1971; Galloway, 1971b, 1972a, 1972b, 1976; Grove, 1976a, 1976b; Knapp, 1971; Koch, 1971b, 1975; Thompson, 1973; Wiemann & Wiemann, 1975). Most of these publications have served a useful role in emphasizing the significant influence of nonverbal communication in our lives and cultures, and have made commendable efforts to try to relate findings from other settings and disciplines to education. However, one major reservation concerning the suggestions is that many of them remain to be tested empirically in the classroom. Also, much of the earliest work made no* attempt to relate the teacher's nonverbal behaviors to resulting student products, the ultimate measure by which practicing teachers are judged to be effective or not.

Other educators have not only made teachers more aware of nonverbal behavior but have had them practice various nonverbal techniques while teaching. These steps have been accomplished by preparing training modules and packages which contain a number of exercises aimed at increasing teacher competence in nonverbal communication (cf., Amidon, 1971; Hodge, 1974; Howard, 1975; Johnson & Pancrazio, 1973; Knapp, 1971; Koch, 1971b; Ligons, 1973; Love & Roderick, 1971; Shapiro, 1977; Wiemann & Wiemann, 1975).

More recently, investigators have made increasing efforts to conduct research on nonverbal concepts in the actual school or classroom setting. A number of these studies will now be examined under the seven categories described previously.

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Environmental Factors

Although the environmental influences on a given communication are not independent of proxemics for practical purposes, a useful conceptual distinction may be made between the physical attributes of a setting and the subsequent use made of that setting. The studies reviewed in this section will be concerned with the former dimension of nonverbal communication.

A few investigations have been made of the effects which the design of an entire physical plant, in this case the school, has on the subsequent behavior and attitudes of personnel exposed to that setting (e.g., Hereford & Hecker, 1963; Myrick & Marx, 1968; Smith & Keith, 1967). For example, Hereford and Hecker (1963) used 34 secondary schools to examine the influence that four factors of building design (size, design, utilization, and type) had on the attitude formation of school personnel concerning themselves, others, the school, and the school's architecture. One major premise of the study was that the type of interpersonal interaction was a key to attitude formation. The authors found no firm evidence that building plan in and of itself is a major influence on attitude, although various less dominant effects were detected. School size was determined to be the single dominant factor with respect to interaction and attitudes of school personnel: smaller schools with about 300 to 450 students per grade seemed to offer a greater degree of integratedness and fewer personnel problems in the school as a whole. (The size range of schools sampled varied from 100 to 750 students per grade.) However, the influence of school size on interaction and attitudes could be modified by particular combinations of design and utilization elements within the school. In this respect, Hereford and Hecker discovered that the "school-within-school" plan appeared to promote desired interaction patterns and attitude formation.

Similar influences of high school design on student behavior were found by Myrick and Marx (1968) who examined the quantity and quality of informal student conversations in schools with different floor designs. Myrick and Marx found that the design of a school building affects the size of student groups which can assemble, and that group size in turn affects the content of student conversations. It seemed that central layouts promoted the formation of larger groups which conducted conversations less in keeping with the goals of the school administration. However, extended or "isolating" layouts forced the students to spend more time traveling from one class to the next, with the result that smaller groups were formed and conversations more in keeping with the goals of the administration were conducted. A pertinent set of findings was that informal conversation among school personnel plays an important role in motivation and attitudes, learning, creating cohesion, and altering the gap between the value system of the "teacher culture" and that of the "student culture."

Thus, there is some evidence to show that design of the educational plant has an influence on the behavior of those placed within its confines. Unfortunately, however, there seems to be little compelling research at this time which relates school design to teaching behavior and student achievement.

A number of references have drawn attention to the physical attributes of the individual classroom. Various educators have commented on the general appearance of the classroom (e.g., Reddick, 1975), prepared detailed specifications for levels of classroom illumination (Rennhackkamp, 1964), provided plans for the ideally de-

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signed fifth-grade classroom (Hartman, Kramer, Murtha, Proctor, & Thomson, 1970), and given numerous suggestions on furniture arrangement in the open-class kindergarten (Baron, 1972). While the research base underlying many of these guidelines has not always been firm, the general feeling has been that various physical attributes of the classroom environment serve to promote or hinder a number of educational goals.

In his landmark publication, Sommer (1969) expressed the view that too little attention had been paid to the effects of classroom design and speculated on how many students might be doing poorly in school as a result of such inattention. He continued by stating that teachers must learn how to use the space and facilities which are available to them to the maximum benefit. In his review, Sommer also drew a distinction between static forms and dynamic processes in environmental design:

Many designers reject the idea that the optimal environment, even for the disabled, has a single static form. Architect Raymond Studer advocates servo-environmental systems, which respond to changes in behavioral input. He feels that design problems phrased in terms of buildings, schools, houses, and neighborhoods obscure dynamic processes that will change over time. James Marston Fitch has described a school environment that rejects day-long environmental norms—the "ideal" temperature of 72 degrees, 50 percent humidity, 60-foot lamberts at desk top, and 45 decibels of sound. A child needs less heat in the afternoon than in the morning, more oxygen and less humidity by the end of the day, as well as greater sound levels in the afternoon than in the morning, (p. 149)

In addition to overall building design and general classroom environmental conditions, particular aspects of the classroom situation have also been examined. For example, Romney (1975) investigated the cognitive and affective effects of windowless classrooms on elementary students. He found no deleterious effects of these surroundings except for a trend toward increased student aggression. He suggested that windowless classrooms could be built as long as students were still able to go outside frequently, such as at recess and during noon-hour lunch periods.

At the university level, Sommer (1965) found that students preferred to escape windowless or laboratory teaching rooms but, if they could not leave, their class participation increased, possibly as a result of higher activity levels. Gifford (1976) discovered that university students accepted without alteration a laboratory situation which was made inhospitable by placing the furniture in awkward arrangements. He felt, however, that this uncomfortable setting could lead to a diffuse negative feeling affecting communicative behavior.

In his comparative study of schools in St. John's Newfoundland, and Kingston, Jamaica, Stebbins (1973) found that the very open and usually crowded classrooms of Kingston were subjected to numerous distractions and resulting "disorderliness." Many of the teachers preferred closed, even windowless, classrooms in order to minimize the distractions which drastically reduced teaching time and effectiveness.

Other classroom characteristics have also been studied. In the preschool laboratory classroom, Tyler (1975) observed that the highest levels of social behavior occurred in areas where there was an abundant supply of materials and no apparent need to

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interact. For this young age group, it seemed that the presence of environmental supports could promote student interaction and, presumably, positive feelings toward the school, self, and others. In her study of selected junior high school classrooms, Loss (1974) found that certain physical nonverbal components of the classrooms could be recorded reliably and that the physical nonverbal data could provide satisfactory description of communication events and teaching style. In the university language laboratory, Moore (1967) discovered that, while students expressed a verbal preference for study carrels over open.tables as places to work, they actually used the tables more often. Also, students at the carrels tended to be more easily distracted. A comparable study at the elementary or high school level could be useful in order to determine the preferred school work patterns of younger students.

During the past decade, a great deal has been written about the merits of, and the many ways to use and organize, the open-space classroom when compared to the traditional classroom setting (cf., Baron, 1972; Hartman et al., 1970; Vandeman, 1976). However, more recent statements concerning the relative lack of advantage for the open facility (e.g., Rosenshine, Note 1), together with the continued abundance of standard classrooms, has somewhat tempered the initial enthusiasm to totally modify the floor space of a school. Currently, emphasis is being placed on showing teachers how to alter traditional classroom space so as to allow greater flexibility of use; this instruction is particularly appropriate for teachers in the open areas who continue to teach as though they were in traditional classrooms.

One recent study (Gauvain, Roper, & Nolan, Note 2) has examined the perceptions of open-space schools by 47 junior high school students. A significant majority of the students (87%) reported that they preferred open-space to self-contained classrooms, but 75% of these same students identified noise as the major problem in their schools. The noises most often reported were voices from other students and teachers and the sound track of films being shown elsewhere. Visual distractions most often reported were seeing the picture from films in adjacent areas and simply seeing other students and teachers. The noise interfered with testing, reading, hearing, and small group interactions. One quarter of the student sample suggested that the best way to improve the open-space facility was to put up walls! Most students also felt that, although a greater variety of activities was presented in the open-space environment, teachers put a greater constraint on their activities and exhibited more tension out of fear of disturbing other classes nearby.

A recent compelling study by Weinstein (1977) has demonstrated the significant influence on behavior of a change in classroom arrangement. Weinstein used a time-sampling-by-child observation schedule to determine the types of behavior manifested in a second-third grade open classroom, and the locations in which this behavior occurred, both before and after altering the classroom furnishings. The data indicated that three types of behavioral change resulted from this direct intervention: "First, children's spatial patterns were modified, as students moved into areas of the room they had previously avoided. Second, the range of behaviors was broadened within certain locations, and third, the frequency of specific categories of behavior was altered" (p. 259). Weinstein felt that, following the classroom modifications, the teacher's instructional goals were being met better and that undesirable behavior by the students had decreased.

From the studies described here, it is quite clear that the physical environment of

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the classroom affects the nature of the teaching activity conducted within its confines. Evidence such as this has led Krasner (1976) to look at the classroom as a total environment planned mainly by the teacher, and has led Proshansky (1976) to proclaim the absolute integrity of person/physical-setting events. An additional pertinent observation by Proshansky goes beyond the purely physical factors which have been discussed: "Regardless of how focal we make the physical setting in studying the person's relationships to his or her environment, that setting has a social definition and purpose" (p. 308). Although social aspects will not be of direct concern in this review, they should be considered in developing a comprehensive theory of teaching.

Proxemics

The second nonverbal category to be examined is that of proxemics, usually defined as a person's use and perception of his or her social and personal space. The topics to be discussed within this classification are classroom seating and spatial arrangements, teacher proximity, and the use of space in open and self-contained teaching facilities.

A pertinent observation concerning classroom seating patterns has been made by Sommer(1969):

My curiosity about classroom seating had been whetted by teachers' assumptions about students' seating: the front rows contain the most interested students, those in the rear engage in illicit activities, students at the aisles are mainly concerned with quick departures, most absentees come from the rear quadrant most distant from the windows, and the straight-row arrangement inhibits discussion. Fact or fiction? Any teacher could supply a dozen concordant or discordant examples at will. The anecdotes seem to agree on the fact that classroom space can be divided into zones containing people who behave differently, but whether zones are selected by those people in the first place or affect them afterwards, or some combination of the two, remained unclear, (p. I l l )

Studies conducted mainly at the university level have attempted to investigate several of the points mentioned by Sommer. For example, Sommer (1965) measured the voluntary classroom participation of psychology undergraduates who were being taught by graduate teaching assistants in both laboratory and seminar settings. In the seminar classroom containing chairs arranged approximately in horseshoe fashion, students seated directly opposite the teaching assistant contributed an average of 3.15 times per student per session, while the corresponding figure for students seated along the sides of the configuration was 2.08. The difference was statistically significant at the .05 level. Students placed in extra chairs outside the horseshoe were inconsistent in their levels of contribution. For the laboratory setting, consisting of four rows of benches stretching toward the rear of the room and two long benches along each side, Sommer found a significant decrease in the number of contributions from the first row to the second and third rows. He discovered further that the percentages of students taking active part in classroom proceedings were 71 %, 49%, 51 %, and 54% respectively, from the front through the fourth rows. An unexpected finding was that 82% of the students seated along the sides of the laboratory also contributed.

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In addition, Sommer (1965) examined the participation levels in one standard and one windowless classroom, both of which contained four rows of desks. Even in these small cramped rooms where latecomers had to sit in the front row immediately adjacent to the teacher, participation in terms of voluntary contributions per person per session declined from the front to the back rows: 1.77, 1.23, 1.32, and .95 respectively. No differences in levels of participation were observed between the conventional and windowless classrooms.

Sommer (1969) has described similar data from several other studies and delineated an ecology of participation in straight-row classrooms. He indicated that not only was participation greatest in the front row of desks but also in the center of each row. A similar finding was reported in a descriptive study conducted by Adams and Biddle (1970). From their work in 16 elementary and secondary classrooms, Adams and Biddle discovered that 64% of pupil emitters were located in the first three seats of the center row and that virtually all pupil emitters were accounted for by including the front desks on either side of the center. However, Delefes and Jackson (1972) found that the frequencies of participation in this "action zone" were not as high as those suggested by Adams and Biddle and that more pupil emissions came from the right-hand side of the classroom than were reported elsewhere.

In a recent study conducted at the university level, Koneya (1976) asked two major research questions: (a) Are central positions in row-and-column seating arrangements selected by individuals who are experimentally categorized as high verbalizers to a significantly greater extent than by individuals experimentally categorized as low verbalizers?, and (b) Among persons experimentally designated as equal verbalizers, do the central physical locations of a row-and-column seating arrangement promote a high verbal interaction rate from their occupants relative to the interaction rates of occupants of noncentral positions? Koneya hoped to provide at least a partial answer to an earlier question raised by Sommer (1969): Do certain students choose particular classroom areas, or do these areas subsequently affect the students, or are both of these factors involved?

In his experiment, Koneya found a triangle of participation which extended across the front row of the classroom and terminated at the middle seat of the middle row. In response to the first of his research questions, Koneya found that moderate and low verbalizers avoided central seats to a greater extent than did high verbalizers. Apparently, some personal preferences affect the choice of seats in the classroom. In response to his second question, Koneya discovered that both high and moderate verbalizers exhibited significantly higher rates of verbalization when seated centrally than when seated noncentrally. However, low verbalizers gave consistently low verbalization rates no matter where they were placed. The data indicated clearly that student location within a classroom can be a powerful index of communication.

One other study using undergraduate students (Breed & Colaiuta, 1974) reported that general nonverbal behavior patterns and test performance did not differ whether students sat in the front-, middle-, or back-third of the lecture hall. However, because 52 undergraduates were observed in a room with seating for 135 occupants, the ability to generalize to the much smaller regular classroom may be somewhat limited. Some differences were recorded between the nonverbal activity of students seated centrally and those seated peripherally; the former group manifested greater activity, looked at the instructor more, and wrote more, but also looked around and blinked more. Breed and Colaiuta discovered that students who changed their seats from one

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occasion to the next had higher test scores than students who occupied the same seats constantly. This finding is of some interest in view of Kohl's statement (cited by Sommer, 1969, p. 117) that students should be free to change their seats from class to class depending on their personal needs and motivations at the time.

In his more naturalistic study of seating arrangements in sixth-grade classrooms, Rubin (1973) prepared six different seating configurations for week-long periods of time: the group concept, circle, teacher among students, horseshoe, random, and traditional. The various seating arrangements were found to affect student performance, attitude, and behavior. Generally, low-IQ (as derived from test scores) students preferred to have the teacher in their midst, whereas high-IQ students preferred the circle and horseshoe arrangements, which were seen by all students as being "freer." Discipline was not a dominant theme in any of the arrangements, but students consistently expressed negative feelings about the traditional classroom seating plan with its rows and columns of desks. Hence, from the studies examined so far, it seems that one's location in a classroom can affect one's communication level and that the arrangement of classroom furniture can influence the various communication processes which are constantly occurring between teacher and students.

During the past few years, many educators have emphasized the need to examine, and have often provided suggestions for, the structuring and use of classroom space (cf., Howard, 1975; Katz, 1972; Krantz & Risley, 1972; Oregon Consolidated Schools, 1973; Rasmussen, 1958). Most of these suggestions have been based on practical classroom experience or on extensive observations of classrooms. However, the subsequent examination of altered teacher behavior or student performance has usually not been carried out.

Several studies have attempted to examine possible influences of open-space schools on proxemic behavior. For example, Brody and Zimmerman (1975) found that children in open classrooms had smaller personal spaces than children in traditional classes and suggested that personal space was a socially learned phenomenon. Results of a second investigation (Feitler, Wiener, & Blumberg, 1970) determined that teachers with differing interpersonal needs may be more comfortable in one type of setting than in another. As a result of using Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO-B) test scores, Feitler et al. observed that persons with high-control needs preferred a structured situation with the teacher in a position of control, while low-control persons opted for a less structured situation with less obvious teacher control. However, the data used in the study came from a paper-pencil test and questionnaire and did not include classroom evidence as to whether the two groups of teachers actually behaved differently from each other and from setting to setting. Randall, Hamilton, & Lashbrook (1972) observed no differences in perception of group cohesion among students classified as having either rigid or loose depictions of territoriality when they met together in small groups for brief periods of time.

Perry (undated) demonstrated that more controlling behavior was observed in elementary teachers provided with an inadequate amount of classroom space per child (less than 30 square feet [2.79 m2]) per child, than in similar teachers with an adequate amount of space (more than 49 square feet [4.55 m2]). These results led Perry to suggest that the provision of adequate space was necessary to make teachers more effective.

Rivlin and Rothenberg (1975) conducted a mapping study to see how space in

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open-area classrooms is actually being used by the teachers. Their examination of four open areas in two elementary schools revealed a similar use of floor space in each case: an uneven distribution of student activity, with up to 45% of class activity confined to one-twelfth of the total area available, and busy adjacent areas. In at least one extreme case, six of the twelve room segments each received less than 5% of the class activity. The authors found a general reluctance of the teacher to move around the room and cover all of its areas. These results helped to confirm what a growing number of educators have suspected: merely providing a facility without specific instruction in its use does not necessarily alter customary behavioral patterns.

Rogers (1976) examined the effect that the organization of play space had on children's productive and disruptive behavior in the nursery school setting. Two room arrangements were prepared: maximum organization with open paths and less than two-thirds of the floor surface covered with furniture, and minimum organization with blocked paths and more than two-thirds of the area covered. Rogers detected more total behavior, more productive behavior, more verbal-productive behavior, less disruptive behavior, and less verbal-disruptive behavior in the room with maximum organization.

After studying the effects on listening comprehension of three different amounts of interpersonal space and eye-contact, Sherman (1973) found that 34 fourth graders demonstrated higher levels of performance as the proctor moved from 20 ft. (6.10 m) to only 1 ft. (.20 m) away from the class members. No effect was found for the presence or absence of teacher eye-contact. However, since only five students were together at any one time in a somewhat artificial teaching situation, any general statements concerning teacher proximity should be made with some caution. Nevertheless, the results are consistent with a number of other observations concerning the effects of teacher-student interpersonal distance: the closer the teacher is to the target group, the more effective he or she is according to some measure of student performance.

Hesler (1972) conducted a comprehensive study of how teachers of an undergraduate course in communication use classroom space and how they are perceived by their students. In order to obtain proxemic measures, Hesler divided the classroom into six different areas: (a) BL - teacher at front blackboard or front wall of classroom, (b) DK - teacher at or sitting on, beside, or behind desk (the two "distant" categories), (c) T - teacher in front of desk, (d) S - teacher outside the side rows of desks or along side walls, (e) BK - teacher at back of room or behind students, and (f) AM - teacher among students (the four "near" categories). The results indicated that male teachers made more use of the distance categories and moved around the classrooms more often than females, and also tended to be at or behind the desk (i.e., in area DK) more frequently. On the other hand, female teachers spent most of their time in front of the desk, in area T. Three of the area variables were related to interpersonal relationship variables as seen by the students: teacher affection (i.e., teacher was perceived as warm, friendly, and effective), inclusion (i.e., students felt that they were part of the class unit), and student affection (i.e., students felt that they were liked and accepted by the teacher). Use of DK was negatively related to teacher affection and inclusion, use of T was positively related to inclusion, and use of AM was positively related to student affection. In general, a strong positive, though not significant, relationship existed between use of the near categories and inclusion, while a slight relationship existed between use of the near categories and

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affection. As the distance between the teacher and students increased, the teacher was perceived as being less warm. No significant relationship existed between the use of space and the teacher's personality as assessed by the Maudsley Personality Inventory. Finally, teachers were found to use space differently in traditional and nontraditional classrooms: teachers in the former type of facility changed categories less often and displayed higher ratio scores of T together with lower ratio scores of DK, BL, and S.

At the elementary-school level, Norton and Dobson (1976) investigated how differences in children's race, age, and sex affected their perceptions of some teacher nonverbal behaviors. Among the findings reported, those of most relevance to the present discussion on proxemics were that boys seemed to show greater tolerance for distant or negative teacher behaviors than girls and that boys' perceptions grew increasingly different from girls' as they grew older.

The use of time, reflected in part by a sense of "rhythm," is related to the use of space, but has not been systematically investigated for its influence on nonverbal communication in the classroom. It may be speculated that when the teacher moves or gestures in a relatively rhythmic manner, then he or she is perceived as being better or more effective than the teacher whose timing is off (i.e., one who moves either too quickly or too slowly for the circumstances at hand). Perhaps research now being done on state-shared rhythms (Byers, 1976, 1977) will help to elucidate some aspects of this topic.

Another sense of time emerges in more direct connection with curricular demands, a point mentioned by Galloway (1968): "How teachers use their time indicates the value and importance they place on something. Indeed spending little time on a topic or passing by it can indicate no interest or knowledge about the topic. Teachers do not ordinarily recognize the meanings of their use of time. For instance, students can frequently relate what a teacher's preferences are and what the teacher dislikes" (p. 12). Empirical research on the use and perceptions of time is clearly warranted.

Kinesics

Kinesics, defined as the study of body motions and movement, posture, and facial and eye behavior, has been the focus of several studies (e.g., Brooks & Bowers, 1975; Brooks & Wilson, 1978) and of various suggestions for classroom use (cf., Johnson & Pancrazio, 1973; Koch, 1971b). Other educators have remarked on the superior ability of most students to read their teachers' faces and on the importance of the teacher making eye contact with the class (e.g., Bishop, 1976; Hodge, 1971; Mehra-bian, 1971). However, nonverbal awareness is not necessarily mutual, since Schusler (1971) observed that teachers were too often unaware of their students' perceptions of them on a friendly-unfriendly basis. In addition, teachers considered the students to be much more homogeneous in terms of preferences than they actually were.

Because physical motions and the meanings assigned to them can vary widely from culture to culture, an awareness of culturally based kinesic differences has been considered particularly important for foreign language teachers (cf., Fancy, 1976; Green, 1971) and for teachers with students from different cultural environments (Bachmann, 1973; Grove, 1976a, 1976b; H. M. Taylor, 1976; Walz, 1975). In his outline of proxemic and kinesic differences among cultures, Grove (1976b) stated that while it was unrealistic to expect teachers to significantly alter their basic cultural

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assumptions and behavioral patterns, they should at least be equipped with a knowledge of kinesic differences and with an empathy for students from cultural backgrounds dissimilar to their own.

Mehrabian (1971) proposed that greater use of gestures by the teacher tends to be associated with a more affiliative classroom style which in turn elicits liking and cooperation from others. However, within limits, increased kinesic activity may also be associated with the rather ephemeral quality called "enthusiasm," which has been cited often as an important motivational factor in the classroom. Roderick (1973) used a similar rationale for her study: "These overt observable nonverbal behaviors indicate how the body moves and expresses itself and consequently may provide some clues as to the amount and degree of involvement an individual brings to a task" (p. 20).

According to Grobsmith (1973), gestures play a critical role in classroom communication, especially when used by groups such as the Dakota Indians: "Sign language, used contextually, can be understood as a method of communication governed by grammatical and situational rules and subject to decision-making processes regarding selection" (p. 1). In cases like this, gestures alone can convey the total message intended as long as both sender and receiver know the meanings attached to the different signs.

In a descriptive study of the use of gestures by student teachers in art, Victoria (1970) found high levels of body posture, facial motion, head motion, and body motion. Of these nonverbal kinesic behaviors, 57% were classed as supportive of the pupils, and only 3% were considered unsupportive. No data linking teacher behavior and subsequent student behavior were obtained, however.

Grant (1973) examined the notion that different types of movements were used in open-space and traditional classrooms. She found that teachers' movements in the open facility were usually more informal and varied as a result of the additional kneeling and squatting required but that instructional moves were similar in the two settings: "They all survey, point, nod, etc. in cyclical patterns that are repeated continuously in the interactive situation" (p. 210). The students' pedagogical moves, such as raising the hand, also seemed to be the same in both types of classroom.

Wyckoff (1973) studied the effects of teacher mobility, gesturing, and pausing during presentation of a lecture to elementary- (grades 4 to 6) and secondary- (grades 7 to 12) school students. The data reflected improved student test performance with increased stimulus variation for the secondary students, but a corresponding decrease in test performance for the elementary students. The author suggested that depressed test scores for the younger students might have resulted from one or both of two factors: either increased teacher behavior distracted the students, or the lecture and test content was too difficult for them. In addition, generalizing from these findings should be done with some care since the experiment took place in a rather atypical classroom situation, that is, the microteaching lab where the "teacher" interacted with only four students at a time.

Of the various kinesic behaviors investigated in the classroom, the facial feature of smiling appears to be one of the most significant. In a study of the behavioral cues of interpersonal warmth, Bayes (1970) found that frequency of smiling was the single best predictor of perceived warmth. Since effective teachers have often been portrayed as "warm," among other things, the role played by teacher smiles may not have received its due amount of recognition.

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One investigation of nonverbal warmth (Kleinfeld, 1973) used close proximity, frequent smiling, and touch to increase the learning of Eskimo students in a one-to-one counseling situation. Kleinfeld emphasized the importance of these nonverbal cues in dealing with both Eskimo and white children.

In their comprehensive study, Keith et al. (1974) analyzed both verbal and nonverbal classroom teaching behaviors. The results of a cluster analysis produced three reliable and virtually independent dimensions: (a) positive, task-relevant, teacher-pupil interaction, (b) observation and group interaction, and (c) teacher disapproval and pupil misbehavior. Their key finding concerning task-oriented, teacher-pupil interaction was that smiling, verbally probing student teachers were associated with thoughtful and responsive pupils over a variety of performance measures.

In a series of laboratory experiments which examined the effects of teacher gaze on attitudes of university students, Breed (1971) found that moderate levels of gaze worked to the teacher's advantage. He found that gaze was not a critical factor if the lecture material was interesting, but that little or no eye contact with the students usually produced negative student feelings. High levels of gaze at particular students made them more attentive to the teacher. However, when the same material was presented on videotape, gaze was not considered important; the students evidently realized that they were not being visually monitored in any case.

In a study cited previously (Norton & Dobson, 1976), the following results were described:

Caucasian six-year-old children considered eye contact to be neutral, but older Caucasian children considered eye contact increasingly negative with age. Black and Indian six-year-old children considered eye contact to be negative and considered it increasingly more neutral with age. Caucasian children have different perceptions of eye contact with teachers than do Black and Indian children when they enter school. The patterns begin to reverse as more time is spent in the school experience due to the wide use of eye contact by teachers in the elementary school and the consequences that follow such occasions, (pp. 99-100)

The proxemic and kinesic areas of nonverbal behavior which have just been presented seem worthy of much more research by virtue of their unceasing presence in the classroom. Together with the other nonverbal dimensions to be discussed below, these facets of classroom communication are always occurring whether teachers realize it or not. According to Birdwhistell (quoted by Dance, 1967b, p. 305), "Nothing never happens" while, in like manner, Galloway (1970) emphasized that communication occurs by omission as well as by inclusion of overt behavior: "Something that you don't do can be as significant as something you do" (p. 4). When dealing with proxemic and kinesic variables, these observations deserve particular attention.

Touching Behavior

Although the type and amount of touching behavior varies among different cultural groups, the effects of teacher touch on student behavior seems to have been isolated in only one study. In her examination of the effects of teachers' touching

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behavior in first- and second-grade classrooms, Pratt (1974) found no significant relationship between type of touch and reading achievement scores.

In a reference mentioned earlier (Kleinfeld, 1973), touch and smiling were used together as indices of warmth, but the two effects were not examined separately. It is possible that touch plays a supporting role in classroom communication, although, as Kleinfeld points out, it should be used only when the teacher feels comfortable doing so and when the student will not feel discomfited.

Physical Characteristics

Although many psychological experiments have studied how people perceive others with varying physiques, general degrees of attractiveness, body odors, height, weight, and hair or skin color (cf, Knapp, 1978), apparently no educational investigations have been done which relate these factors to teacher effectiveness in the elementary or secondary classrooms. The influence which these variables may have on student achievement remains an empirical question.

Paralanguage

Similarly, the effects of paralinguistic variables (i.e., voice volume, pitch, tempo and intensity, silent pauses, intruding sounds, and speech errors) on classroom teaching performance have not been investigated so far. In a somewhat related study, however, Bayes (1970) found that tone of voice was not a reliable index of interpersonal warmth. Typically these factors have been seen as accompanying and modifying, rather than substituting for, verbal messages (Barker & Collins, 1970). This viewpoint would seem to undervalue the communicative significance of the paralinguistic variables.

One of the less obvious factors of paralanguage is silence, the total absence of a verbal message. Grobsmith (1973) pointed out that "verbal silence may not be the equivalent of noncommunication" (p. 3); while Jensen (1973) carried the significance of silence even further: "Silence can communicate scorn, hostility, coldness, defiance, sternness, and hate; but it can also communicate respect, kindness, and acceptance" (p. 252).

The single study involving silence to be reported here (Raymond, 1973) tried to determine the effectiveness of silence in a microteaching situation. Although student teachers who had practiced the use of nonverbal cues used them more often during teaching, and exhibited more positive nonverbal interactions with their students, they were not perceived by the pupils as being more effective than student teachers lacking the nonverbal training. However, the period of time used to conduct the investigation may have been too short to detect potential differences in the use or nonuse of teacher silence.

Artifacts

The effects of various manipulated objects such as clothes and beauty aids have been examined in various settings (cf, Knapp, 1978) but apparently have not drawn the interest of educational researchers. Various observations have been made such as the one by Fowles (1974): "Our clothes broadcast our sex (usually), our rank (decreasingly), and our up-to-dateness (increasingly)" (p. 348), but the significance of this information for teaching is unclear. Cook (1971) has stated, "Studies on the

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interpretation of facial features, voice, etc., that give only this information, are probably overestimating their importance. If the judge is given a larger sample of more relevant information—as would normally be the case—he does not allow the subject's appearance to influence his judgement" (p. 69). A further examination of this aspect of teacher nonverbal communication would seem warranted.

As this report has already indicated, research concerned with the various dimensions of nonverbal communication in teaching has produced relatively few firm conclusions but many promising leads. Usually, the implications for classroom practice have been derived from studies in other areas or from personal observations and experiences. These implications have then formed the bases of suggestions and exercises prepared for preservice or inservice classroom teachers (e.g., Adams, 1976; Borgers & Ward, undated; French, 1971; Galloway, 1970, 1971b, 1976; Grove, 1976b; Hodge, 1971; Howard, 1975; Johnson & Pancrazio, 1973; Knapp, 1971; Koch, 1971a, 1971b, 1975; Ostler & Kranz, 1976; Strom & Ray, 1971; H. M. Taylor, 1976; Wiemann & Wiemann, 1975).

Additional suggestions have been directed at teachers of particular subject areas such as second-language teaching (Bachmann, 1973; Fancy, 1976; Walz, 1975), English or language arts (Foerster, 1974; Hennings, 1975; Melnik & Larson, 1976; Rosen & Pistone, 1976), mathematics (e.g., Mon, 1974), or at teachers assigned to counseling situations (e.g., Hughey & Piepgrass, 1976). Other authors have written more extensive training manuals or teaching modules (cf, Amidon, 1971; Hodge, 1974; Ligons, 1973; Love & Roderick, 1971; Shapiro, 1977). Finally, several investigators have attempted to train teachers to interpret or emit various nonverbal behaviors while teaching (Jecker, Maccoby, & Breitrose, 1965; Pancrazio & Johnson, 1971; A. D. Raymond, 1972; A. F. Raymond, 1973; Strother, Ayres, & Orlich, 1971). The latter efforts have typically met with only marginal success, usually because of the very short training and test periods involved or because the nonverbal cues being taught were not necessarily the most significant ones. It is anticipated that once the dominant constellations of nonverbal behaviors have been isolated, then focused training of teachers in these behaviors should produce at least short-term benefits.

This section of the paper has summarized the relevant investigations of classroom nonverbal behavior under seven particular headings. However, most descriptive studies have used a variety of other classification systems, the majority of which have been stimulated by Flanders' interaction analysis model with its focus on direct and indirect verbal influence. The latter schemes include those developed by Amidon (1971), French (1970), French and Galloway (1968), Galloway (1968, 1972b, 1976), Heger (1968), Love and Roderick (1971), and Parker and French (1971). Other categories have been created by the Roderick group (cf, Roderick, 1973; Roderick & Littlefield, 1972; Roderick & Vawter, 1972), Grant and Hennings (1971), and Pancrazio and Johnson (1971).

An alternative method of classification which has been used consists of preparing extensive lists of nonverbal behaviors which are then placed within more global nonverbal dimensions. However, these latter designations have tended to vary in both number and scope. For example, investigations have employed 7 categories (Victoria, 1970), 13 categories (Loss, 1974), 15 categories (Koch, 1971a), or 20 categories (Keith et al., 1974), each differing from the other in terms of basic frames of reference.

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The earliest classification models, especially those derived from Flanders' interaction analysis model, tended to rely on in vivo classroom observation with recordings taken every few seconds. More recently, the emphasis has been on videotaping the classroom encounter and transcribing the data later, a most useful procedure in view of the permanent public record created by the videotape. Further, most of the first efforts to collect classroom data were purely descriptive in nature and usually did reasonably well at capturing various classroom proceedings. However, attempts were generally not made to assess the effects on students of different types and quantities of teacher nonverbal behavior. Nevertheless, many of these endeavors brought the study of nonverbal communication in teaching to the threshold of significant advances in theory and research.

Theoretical and Methodological Issues

The primary aim of this section is to describe the nature of theory and research needed to clarify the role of nonverbal communication in teaching and to build productively on what has already been accomplished. The position to be taken here is that research on nonverbal communication cannot proceed in isolation from the mainstream of research on teaching. Also, because research is often guided by unspecified theoretical assumptions, the general nature of educational theory and a functional research paradigm will be presented. Specific topics will include the concept of "paradigm," some issues concerning the nature of theory development in the sciences, and characteristics of the currently dominant educational paradigm. Subsequently, research in nonverbal communication will be viewed from within the guidelines established at this time.

The Concept of "Paradigm"

When Kuhn (1962) first explained the apparent role of paradigms in scientific endeavor, he defined paradigms as "universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners" (p. viii). However, his various uses of the term were sufficiently vague to prompt a subsequent elaboration of his views (see Kuhn, 1970). In this latter statement, Kuhn described "paradigm" as having two different senses in his original treatise: "On the one hand, it stands for the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques and so on shared by the members of a given community. On the other, it denotes one sort of element of constellation, the concrete puzzle-solutions which, employed as models or examples, can replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science" (p. 175). He described the first sense as a "sociological" one (p. 175) and proposed that the term "disciplinary matrix" be used instead of "paradigm" to describe this particular viewpoint (p. 182). The second sense of the term, which he referred to as "exemplary past achievements" (p. 175) or "shared example" (p. 187), was considered the appropriate one for his purposes.

As used in the present paper, however, the term "paradigm" will correspond to Kuhn's description of "disciplinary matrix" and to the definition outlined by Palermo (1971):

"Paradigm" refers to the consensually agreed upon modus operandi of a mature scientific discipline. It consists of the conceptions of the nature of theory to be

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used in guiding research, the types of problems worthy of investigation, the research methods appropriate to investigating those problems, and even, on occasion, the instrumentation which is required. These conceptions are the rules for playing the game of science; they are formed more by common law procedures than by fiat. They determine the way in which the world of that discipline is viewed, and make it difficult for alternative conceptions to be considered, (p. 136)

Accordingly, as applied here, "paradigm" will incorporate the essentially subtheo-retical stages of investigation which include the strategy and tactics of research methodology. The main reason for adopting this more global use of the word is that the state of educational research is not in as advanced a stage of development as the physical sciences from which Kuhn drew most of his "shared examples." However, it is anticipated that, over time, Kuhn's preferred use of "paradigm" will gradually replace the sociological view assumed here.

The Nature of Theory Development in Science

In his cogent remarks on the method of science, Margenau (1972) outlined three critical domains of scientific development: the primary or protocol data consisting of directly observed facts, the stabilization of meaning consisting of the refinement and stabilization of primary data and scientific procedures, and a conceptual synthesis that occurs when concepts, laws, principles, and theories are progressively evolved to explain the observed facts. A failure to consider adequately any one of the three domains will produce a deficient theory and, more globally, an incomplete "science." In passing, it may be noted that studies of teaching have usually failed to obtain the necessary protocol data, with the result that the other two domains have been developed neither adequately nor appropriately.

When a scientist or group of scientists offers a fully developed theory, validation of that theory becomes a prime concern and a major focus of later scientific endeavor. While outlining the process of confirming theoretical propositions by empirical tests, Marx (1970, p. 72) noted that scientists are limited to making probability statements concerning theory validation. He also presented Meehl's (1967) argument that the physical sciences continue to improve instrumentation and methodology so that support of the theory becomes more difficult to obtain while a parallel development in psychology and related behavioral sciences makes such support easier to obtain.

One implication of this comparison between the physical and behavioral sicences is that psychology and related areas should conform to the sets of scientific methodologies embraced by physics and chemistry. Such an implication is not intended, since that particular issue has been for some time, and continues to be, one of dispute and uncertainty. Psychology has also been considered to be a biological science (e.g., Hebb, 1974; Smart, 1968), and the relationship between the physical and biological sciences remains uncertain at best (cf., Margenau, 1972; Ruse, 1973). For example, Ruse (1973) presents five arguments to support the claim that some facts of biology can never be subjected to a physicochemical analysis. On the other hand, many behavioral scientists would not support Smart's (1968) position that much of biology, including explanation in psychology, is natural history which denies the role of prediction in theory validation. Clearly, the issue of where to place behavioral sciences in the field of science will not be resolved here. The main point is that

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behavioral sciences may be considered science, even preparadigmatic sciences (cf., Kuhn, 1970) in some cases, by virtue of the types of questions asked and the methods used to seek answers to those questions. The problem of how to classify this branch of the sciences may well concern philosophers of science more than the behavioral scientists themselves.

One area in which behavioral sciences have left themselves open to question concerns the foci of their areas of interest. Science, by imposing limits on itself to attack problems it is suited to attack (cf., Hebb, 1974, p. 74) and thereby specifically excluding particular modes of human experience (cf, Margenau, 1972, p. 4), has been free to explore and develop within its defined parameters. To increase its impact and to ensure continued development, behavioral science should likewise delimit its parameters so as to attempt to provide adequate accounts of some, rather than inadequate accounts of all, aspects of human experience.

Problems of Educational Research

Many recent publications (e.g., Adams, 1972; Dunkin & Biddle, 1974; Kennedy & Bush, 1976; McKeachie, 1974; Snow, 1974; Stubbs & Delamont, 1976; Suppes, 1974; Berliner, Note 3; Fisher & Berliner, Note 4) have described the shortcomings of much current research on teaching and have usually proposed alternative operating modes. For example, in his brief and cogent paper, Berliner (Note 3) isolated three categories of problems which he considered central to the lack of progress in studies of teacher effectiveness: instrumentation, methodology, and statistics. Under the first category, he classified a variety of difficulties attending both dependent and independent variables and stressed the need to consider multivariate outcome measures in educational research. Within the category of methodology, he outlined a number of issues hampering knowledge about the relationship between teacher behavior and student outcomes, including interactions between teacher effectiveness and student background, subject matter, study samples, and construct validation. Finally, in the statistics category, he expressed a general lack of faith in most current statistical procedures and called for the aid of sophisticated statisticians working in applied settings.

The problem of attempting to apply the techniques and findings of experimental psychology to educational settings has been enunciated particularly clearly by McKeachie (1974) who examined the interface between observed classroom behavior and generalizations from learning theory, psychology's prime area of endeavor over the past 70 years. The major deficiencies of the laws of learning in an applied arena were attributed by McKeachie to "failures to take account of differences between human and other animals [and] . . . failure to take account of important variables controlled in laboratory situations but interacting with independent variables in natural educational settings" (p. 9). A similar sentiment was echoed by Snow (1974):

It might also be noted that a greater degree of behavioral stability may take place in the natural setting than in the lab, possibly due to the greater redundancy of relevant cues, both spatially and temporally. If complex behavior is assumed to be both probabilistic and multidimensional, "stripping" the environment down to a minimum in order to control, to determine the role of a very few variables, may be a potentially self-defeating process, (p. 268)

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Snow also expressed the view that the simple experimental design is "perhaps . . . sufficient for the purposes of summative evaluation studies, but it is not sufficient for formative evaluation and certainly not for conclusion-oriented research" (p. 269). Subsequently, he added:

The alternative is the method, more akin to biology, of successive omission of factors, in which complex, perhaps naturally occurring treatments that are found really effective in at least one context are then dissected by systematic experiments to find out how and why they work. (p. 278)

Snow then went on to develop Brunswik's ideas of 20 years ago, together with those of Campbell and Stanley (1963), by elaborating strategies and techniques for what he called representative and quasi-representative designs for research on teaching. In his concluding remarks, Snow observed that "the study of school learning requires adapting methodology to match the complexity of students and situations in schools, before the molecular mechanisms of laboratory learning can be traced in the moral behavior of school learning" (pp. 288-289).

A pertinent observation concerning the molecular-molar distinction was also made by Margenau (1972), after he noted that a gas has temperature while a single one of its constituents does not:

This state of affairs is best characterized by saying that there is continuity of explanation from below, but not from above. One can go continually toward an understanding of matters on the higher plane if one starts with knowledge on the lower plane, though not in the reverse direction. But in this ascent, knowledge on the lower plane becomes irrelevant because new concepts like temperature, etc. emerge, and these have no direct reference to particles, (p. 42)

Hence, many of the difficulties plaguing educational research undertaken before 1970 resulted from applying experimental techniques in settings too far removed from the classroom and before the basic protocol data (cf, Margenau, 1972) had been collected. The latter deficiency has been addressed by Rogers (cited by Dance, 1967b):

I came to a conclusion which others have reached before, that in a new field perhaps what is needed first is to steep oneself in the events, to approach the phenomena with as few preconceptions as possible, to take a naturalist's observational, descriptive approach to these events, and to draw forth those low-level inferences that seem most native to the material itself, (pp. 291-292)

Other writers have attempted to overcome the first problem by calling for more naturalistic research based in the classroom (cf, Jackson, 1974; Lutz & Ramsey, 1974; Overholt & Stallings, 1976), since the classroom context has been seen as a critical component of the teaching process (e.g., Cook, 1971; Tikunoff, Note 5; Ward, Note 6). Cook (1971) has stated his position as follows:

The absence of any context is one of the reasons why laboratory experiments often seem artificial. Secord and Backman . . . point out that the situation the

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person is in—the role he is filling—often determines his behaviour, rather than his personality, Knowing where the person is may be more informative than knowing who he is. (p. 64)

Educational research has also been hampered by incomplete data stemming from the short periods of time used to complete most studies. There have been various reasons why many researchers have been satisfied with "snapshots" in time rather than changes over time, but the former data-collection strategy is no longer adequate for most purposes. Proshansky (1976) has elaborated somewhat on this point:

It is not enough to study these events in their natural context with a minimum intrusion of the research process and with the painstaking avoidance of conceptions that violate the integration of the totality that we call man and his adaptation to his physical setting. They must be studied over time, for in fact part of the integrity of human events is that they have a beginning and an end. (p. 308)

The most comprehensive assessment of results and issues pertaining to the study of teaching has been provided by Dunkin and Biddle (1974). After detailed consideration of a wide variety of educational research, the authors produced a summary chapter which proposed substantial modifications in the operating modes of most investigators involved with the study of teaching. For example, Dunkin and Biddle recommended that increased support be given to teams of investigators committed over a period of years to particular avenues of research, that new observational instruments for research on teaching not be developed in the absence of clear theoretical justifications, that complete descriptive statistics be reported for all pertinent findings, and that research designs provide independent measures of teacher behavior, classroom environmental conditions, and individual pupil behavior. The general import of Dunkin and Biddle's message was that existing educational research has been generally inadequate in leading to an understanding of the teaching process.

The Process-Product Paradigm

During the past decade, one research paradigm has gained increasing favor with educational researchers, the so-called process-product paradigm (cf., Dunkin & Biddle, 1974; Jansen, Jensen, & Mylov, 1972; Gage, Note 7). Within this paradigm, shown in Figure 1, relationships are sought between teacher and student classroom behaviors and resultant student achievement in cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. Other antecedent or attendant variables, labeled as "presage" and "context" in Figure 1, can also be examined for their influences on the process-product relationships.

Several recent investigations have been able to make strong initial contributions to the process-product paradigm by virtue of their comprehensiveness (cf., Brophy & Evertson, Note 8; McDonald & Elias, Note 9; Soar, Note 10; Stallings & Kaskowitz, Note 11). The sets of data have been examined for their collective contributions to teaching practice (e.g., Rosenshine, Note 1) and may help to generate additional interest in combining results from different experiments (cf., Glass, 1976, 1978; Gage, Note 7). These massive studies have also tended to avoid most of the previously mentioned problems associated with educational research.

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If investigations leading to a viable theory of teaching can be seen as progressing from descriptive to correlational to experimental levels (cf., Gage, Note 7), then the major research programs would seem to have satisfied the descriptive and correlational stages for the particular grades and subject matters involved. In fact, Gage (Note 7) maintains that researchers now possess the information needed to proceed with experimental studies and he urges that they do so. However, it still remains to be determined whether the necessary descriptive or correlational data are available to conduct experimental studies of nonverbal communication in teaching. With this point in mind, the four large projects listed above are currently being examined for their contributions to the nonverbal domain.

Educational Research and Nonverbal Communication

The tradition of research in nonverbal communication both inside and outside educational spheres has not proceeded with the process-product paradigm in mind, although several lines of nonverbal research can be viewed readily from such a perspective. In one of his book reviews, Exline (1976) summarized the four research traditions characteristic of nonverbal communication: (a) the assessment of physical movement, characterized by general descriptions based on spatiotemporal measurements, (b) the structural approach, which examines multichanneled communications as governed by cultural rules, (c) the ethological approach, characterized by natu-

FIGURE 1. The process-product paradigm (adapted from Dunkin & Biddle, 1974 and Jansen et al., 1972).

TEACHER VARIABLES Training Experience Personal i ty Mot iva t ion Social c lass Age Sex Teaching

sk i I Is Inte l I igence

T y p e I V a r i a b l e s ( P r e s a g e )

S E T T I N G VARIABLES G r a d e M a t e r i a l s C l a s s s i z e P h y s i c a l

env i ronment

x:

PUPI L V A R I A B L E S E x p e r i e n c e s E x p e c t a n c i e s P e r s o n a l i t y Peer

inf l u e n c e s S o c i a l

c l a s s Age Sex

T y p e II V a r i a b l e s ( C o n t e x t )

3

C L A S S R O O M B E H A V I O R S T e a c h e r

b e h a v i o r s ( in c l a s s )

T e a c h e r -pup i I i n t e r a c t ion

Pupi l b e h a v i o r s ( i n c l a s s )

PUPIL PRODUCTS C o g n i t i v e :

s h o r t - t e r m l o n g - t e r m

A f f e c t i v e : s h o r t - t e r m l o n g - t e r m

P s y c h o m o t o r j A d u l t

p e r s o n a l i t y

T y p e III V a r i a b l e s ( P r o c e s s )

T y p e IV V a r i a b l e s c p r o d u c t )

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ralistic observation of inherited, adaptive behaviors, and (d) the external variable approach, which stresses the experimental approach and statistical analysis.

In his major contribution to the nonverbal communication literature, Duncan (1969) devoted significant attention to two of these research strategies: the structural and the external variable. He saw the former tradition as an attempt to explicate the existing rules of nonverbal communication to which, presumably, there could be no exceptions. However, Duncan described the external variable approach as an attempt to relate the rate of occurrence of specified nonverbal behaviors to a variety of external variables, an approach which was primarily probabilistic and thus statistical in nature. He saw both traditions as being useful for the study of nonverbal communication.

Duncan also separated the nonverbal research into three interlocking phases which roughly parallel the stages needed to consolidate educational sicence:

(a) differentiating and specifying the behaviors in question through a transcription or notation system; (b) discovering the extent and nature of internal structure exhibited by the behaviors . . . ; and (c) seeking relationships between the behaviors and other variables, such as personality characteristics, situation, and observers'judgments (the study of external variables), (p. 119)

It seems likely that the external variable tradition can make significant contributions to understanding the role of nonverbal communication in teaching. However, as emphasized above, the protocol data from descriptive or correlational studies must be collected first and the subsequent experimentation should be done in the classroom setting over a longer period of time than has been customary.

The difficulties of studying nonverbal communication have not been overlooked. Knapp and Harrison (1972) posed several major questions before outlining some related issues: "What nonverbal behaviors do we look for? What methods of observation will be the most effective? What methods are most effective for analyzing nonverbal data? What recording techniques will be the most productive?" (p. 1).

Galloway (1971a) has provided a cogent summary of the many research problems affecting nonverbal research:

Measurable units of behavior are not readily available to researchers and precise analytic methods have not been devised. Many nonverbal cues that appear in classrooms are elusive and ephemeral. Observers find that data collecting is confounding and laborious. When looking at nonverbal interactions between teachers and students, an observer is reminded again and again that human communication is highly complex and difficult to analyze. Unless rigorous precautions have been taken, the researcher will lack adequate measures of reliability and validity, and he will be uncertain of the usefulness of his information . . . Three problems in analyzing nonverbal data relate to the questions: (1) When to look, (2) What to look for, and (3) How to observe All nonverbal phenomena cannot be observed at once. An observer must make choices about when, what, and how to observe, (p. 313)

The related problem of isolating individual movements without also considering context or "meaning" has been notdd by Mehrabian (1971):

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Again, in dance, where one would expect at least some reliance on feeling and intuition for describing movements, it is discouraging to find that the only comprehensive system of notation describes movements merely as motion, with no reference to what they signify Such reliance on physical description alone for nonverbal behavior is inadequate. It fails to take into account the similar significance of unlike movements that emanate from different body parts (for example, approval given with a head nod or pat on the back). Even more importantly, it fails to provide a direction for identifying significant nonverbal behaviors, (p. 119)

The use of scales has also been considered as an important part of nonverbal research (cf., Leathers, 1976; Mehrabian, 1971). Leathers (1976) argues that category systems provide only quantitative judgments about nonverbal behaviors, while the addition of scaling techniques would also permit qualitative assessments to be made. This point may be especially salient while trying to isolate the effects of variables implicated, for example, in teacher "warmth" (cf., Bayes, 1970; Hodge, 1974; Klein-feld, 1973).

Technological Considerations

The usual data-collection method of the 1960's (i.e., in-class observation schedules) is no longer adequate for a rigorous analysis of classroom nonverbal communication. Instead, videotape and its supporting equipment have become basic requirements in the data collection process. The events placed on tape are public and may be viewed repeatedly from many points of view. On occasion, two videotape recorders have been used for even better coverage of the classroom situation. For some specific purposes, however, audio recordings or even still photographs may suffice. Specialized equipment such as the time lapse videographer (Gurau, 1976) has been developed to aid the recording of classroom data, while the special effects generator (cf., Rezmierski, 1974) has been used to facilitate subsequent data analysis.

Typically, the analysis of videotaped protocols has been done by hand, a thankless task at best. Recently, attempts have been made to computerize various components of this work (cf, Ekman & Friesen, 1976, 1978). These and related efforts deserve special attention in the future study of classroom nonverbal communication. Other technological advances should further facilitate these research endeavors and make possible projects which were totally inconceivable only a short while ago.

Statistical Considerations

Research on nonverbal communication which proceeds within the parameters of the process-product paradigm, and which thereby incorporates the study of complex classroom behaviors with a variety of research methods, should be accompanied by a reexamination of the standard statistical procedures which have usually been applied to most educational research. The focus of a statistical reassessment should not be to discard classical methods of inference, but to involve other techniques as the experimental situation warrants. In the latter regard, increasing emphasis has been given recently to the Bayesian approach as an alternative to standard statistical methods (cf, Binder, 1964; Edwards, Lindman, & Savage, 1963; Hays, 1973; Shulman & Elstein, 1975; Slovic & Lichtenstein, 1971). A prime reason for this trend is that Bayesian approaches tend to consider the data accumulated from previous similar

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experiments and so view the sample at hand as having some previous history. This position has been outlined succinctly by the National Institute of Education (1975):

Existing textbooks on statistical design provide only broad statements about the utility of statistical designs and little or no guidance as to their application in real-world research settings such as schools and classrooms. The Bayesian approach, however, has the potential for combining relevant factors into a model which allows the researcher to select a design in a rational and clearly-defined way (Raiffa & Schlaifer, 1961). Technically, this process is called pre-posterior analysis. Given prior experience, alternative designs and their probable results are analyzed relative to the utility of those results, and the design having the maximum utility is chosen. Another advantage of pre-posterior analysis is that it focuses attention on the important factors in choosing a design. The model facilitates identification of critical points where precise information is necessary and, hence, where research efforts should be directed. (p. 21)

An additional characteristic of the Bayesian approach is its emphasis on descriptive statistics in order to help readers make up their own minds about the research at hand (cf, Edwards et al., 1963, p. 240).

At this time, however, both theoretical and practical guidelines remain to be developed for standardized application in education, since only Novick and his colleagues (e.g., Novick, Note 12; Novick, Jackson, Thayer, & Cole, Note 13) have made systematic use of Bayesian statistics in related settings. Hence, it may be some time before Bayesian methods of statistical inference can be used consistently in the study of classroom behaviors. A possible future direction in this regard has been expressed by the National Institute of Education (1975):

While some theoretical grounds for pre-posterior analysis are available, few practical methods have been developed. What is needed are ways to make the methodology accessible to the performer of research on teaching, with his perhaps unique knowledge and experience. One way to achieve this goal is through the production of computer programs which interrogate the researcher at critical points and present not only the optimal design, but also an analysis of the relative importance of each critical point to the final choice of design. (p. 21)

The essentially probabilistic stance adopted in this report, and in most educational and psychological literature, has not been endorsed by everyone. For example, Signorelli (1974) argued that "the unique as well as the frequent are amenable to lawful explanation" (p. 776) and that modern psychology resembles Aristotelian physics because of its tendency to classify events in terms of their frequency of occurrence. However, at the present stage of most educational research, the ability to designate a high probability of occurrence of an event would be a substantial contribution.

Concluding Remarks

In this report, the area of nonverbal communication has been perceived from the perspective of several common categories and the process-product research paradigm.

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However, developments in these areas have implications for some closely related topics. For example, the relationship of nonverbal communication to verbal communication has not been addressed directly here but has been the focus of some previous speculation (e.g., Balzer, 1969; Burgoon & Saine, 1978; Galloway, 1972b; Harrison, 1973, 1974; Harrison & Crouch, 1975; Knapp, 1978; Lewis & Page, 1974; Mehrabian, 1968, 1971; Nolan, 1975; Wiemann & Wiemann, 1975). In this regard, further studies should help to clarify the so-called "double-bind" question, in which verbal and nonverbal messages conflict with each other (cf., Galloway, 1974b; Keith et al., 1974; Mehrabian, 1971; Woolfolk & Woolfolk, 1974a, 1974b; Woolfolk, Woolfolk, & Garlinsky, 1977).

Nonverbal communication may also be examined for its role in general models of communication (cf., Dance, 1967b; Hanneman, 1975a, 1975b), in models of information processing and decision-making (Shulman & Elstein, 1975; Slovic & Lichten-stein, 1971; Wittrock, 1977), and in general systems theory (cf., Leathers, 1976; Pedersen & Shears, 1973).

In summary, this review has emphasized the importance of nonverbal communication in teaching. Some attempt has been made to describe the research conducted in educational settings and the ensuing implications for classroom practice. The research has been cast against the theoretical and methodological background of the scientific enterprise in education, and some of the major problems have been discussed briefly. The study of nonverbal communication is seen to have significant potential in helping to better understand the teaching process.

Reference Notes

1. Rosenshine, B. Primary grades instruction and student achievement gain. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, April 1977.

2. Gauvain, M. T., Roper, S. S., & Nolan, R. R. Students* perceptions of behavior and instructional practices in open-space schools. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, April 1977.

3. Berliner, D. C. A status report on the study of teacher effectiveness. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Los Angeles, March 1975.

4. Fisher, C. W., & Berliner, D. C. Quasi-clinical inquiry in research on classroom teaching and learning (Report No. VI-2). San Francisco: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, June 1977.

5. Tikunoff, W. J. Context variables of a teaching-learning event. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, April 1977.

6. Ward, B. A. Why consider context? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, April 1977.

7. Gage, N. L. A reexamination of paradigms for research on teaching. Stanford, Calif.: Center for Educational Research at Stanford, 1977.

8. Brophy, J. E., & Evertson, C. M. The Texas Teacher Effectiveness Project: Presentation of non-linear relationships and summary discussion (Report No. 74-6). Austin, Texas: University of Texas Research and Development Center for Teacher Education, September 1974.

9. McDonald, F. J., & Elias, P. Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study: Phase II, 1973-74, Executive summary report. Princeton, N. J.: Educational Testing Service, 1976.

10. Soar, R. S. Final report: Follow Through classroom process measurement and pupil growth (1970-71). Gainesville, Fl.: University of Florida, June 1973.

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11. Stallings, J. A., & Kaskowitz, D. H. Follow Through classroom observation evaluation 1972-1973. Menlo Park, Calif.: Stanford Research Institute, August 1974.

12. Novick, M. R. Bayesian considerations in educational information systems (Report No. 38). Iowa City: American College Testing Program, November 1970.

13. Novick, M. R., Jackson, P. H., Thayer, D. T., & Cole, N. S. Applications of Bayesian methods to the prediction of educational performance (Report No. 42). Iowa City: American College Testing Program, April 1971.

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gestualite enfantine. Bulletin de Psychologie, 1975-1976, 29 (4-7), 345-355. Adams, R. S. Observational studies of teacher role. International Review of Education, 1972, 18,

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HOWARD A. SMITH

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AUTHOR HOWARD A. SMITH, Associate Professor of Education, Faculty of Education,

Duncan McArthur Hall, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6. Specializations: Human Memory and Learning; Nonverbal Communication in the Classroom.

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