Do those who talk more learn more? The relationship between student classroom talk and student achievement

Abstract

There have been efforts to investigate the link between classroom talk and student achievement for some time. However, studies considering individual student participation in classroom talk have thus far been rare. The research reported in this study was carried out on 639 ninth grade students at Czech middle schools. Observations took place in language arts lessons; talk time and the number of utterances with reasoning were recorded for each student. Achievement was measured using a standardized reading literacy test.The results confirmed a strong link between a given student's talk time and number of utterances featuring reasoning and that student's achievement. As for student talk time, a connection at the classroom level was also identified – students in talkative classrooms had better results. However, there was not a connection between utterances with reasoning and better results at the classroom level. A positive link between individual participation and achievement was observed in all students regardless of socio-economic background or gender.