The Consolidation of Responsibility and Students' Definitions of Situation in the Mixed-Age College Classroom

Abstract

Sociologists have long pointed out that when people enter social situations they bring along with them certain understandings, sometimes called typificatory schemes (Berger & Luckmann, 1967), of normative behaviors expected of them in given situation. Participants in an interaction then negotiate roles and role expectations with one another in a process of defining situation (Goffman, 1959, 1961; McHugh, 1968). Over time habitualized typifications become institutionalized (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). The college classroom is one setting where typifications have been institutionalized, because students have clear expectations of their instructors and other students. Unfortunately, their definitions of classroom and expected roles of students and professors often do not facilitate learning. Learning occurs most effectively in a situation where students are actively engaged with material, other students, and their instructor (see, for example, Astin, 1985; Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991; Kember & Gow, 1994; McKeachie, 1990; Meyers & Jones, 1993). Critical thinking is also fostered by students' active participation in classroom (see, for example, Smith, 1977; Garside, 1996). Each student brings experiences to classroom that can contribute to learning through participation in discussion. Therefore, instructors should be concerned with level and depth of student participation in classroom discussion. However, experience and research demonstrate that most students operate with a Banking Model of Education, wherein instructor is bank of knowledge from which students make withdrawals by taking notes (Freire, 1970). Previous Research In 1976 Karp and Yoels identified a college classroom norm they labeled the of This norm suggests that in typical classroom, participation in discussion will be consolidated in hands of few, with majority of students being passive observers or only occasional participants. Howard, Short, and Clark (1996) and Howard and Henney (1998) have found that consolidation of is still operative norm for discussion, at least in mixed-age college classroom. Studies of participation in classroom discussion have focused on issues of student gender (see, for example, Cornelius, Gray, & Constantinople, 1990; Crawford & MacLeod, 1990; Fassinger, 1995; Sternglanz & Lyberger-Ficek, 1977), instructor gender (see, for example, Auster & MacRone, 1994; Fassinger, 1995; Pearson & West 1991), class size (see, for example, Constantinople, Cornelius, & Gray, 1988; Crawford & MacLeod, 1990; Fassinger, 1995; Howard, Short, & Clark, 1996), teaching techniques (for example, Nunn, 1996) and, occasionally, student age (Howard et al., 1996; Howard & Henney, 1998). Relatively little attention has been given to of responsibility. While male student might participate more frequently than female student, and nontraditional student more often than traditional one, there is, in essence, no average participant. Instead, when of responsibility is operating, there are only talkers--who account for vast majority of all interactions--and nontalkers--those students who speak up only occasionally, if at all (Howard et al., 1996; Howard & Henney, 1998; Karp & Yoels, 1976). Computing mean interaction levels for various demographic groupings is misleading, because it combines participation of all students--talkers and nontalkers--within a demographic grouping into a single mean score. Instead of asking how often member of various demographic groupings (e.g., males versus females) participates, we need to ask who is most likely, and least likely, to accept of responsibility and why? In this study we first identified talkers and nontalkers via observation. …