Field Theory Research

Dr. Jacob Kounin {one of Kurt Lewin’s Doctoral students} provided insight into the classroom dynamics between students and their teacher to determine the effectiveness and strategies of how and why learning occurs. He went beyond clichés like: it all depends upon the child and the situation; admonitions about establish rapport; make it interesting; love of children; and understanding in his exploration. Kounin didn’t believe that these generalizations ran classrooms effectively.

Dr. Kounin hypothesized that there were concrete techniques in managing classrooms that corresponded to the amount of work involvement and misbehavior in learning situations; and that successful classrooms correlated with a high percentage of work involvement and a low percentage of pupil misbehavior.

Camps, elementary, high school, and college classrooms were studied, initially with experimenter observations. Observing classrooms didn’t work so videotaping {a more complete record of what actually took place} of 80 classrooms were used along with interviews and questionnaires.

I’m limiting Dr. Kounin’s research findings to satiation. Satiation was defined by Kurt Lewin as the change in valence of an activity due to repetition. Consult May 10, 2019 post for more on Dr. Kurt Lewin. Does the nature of classroom activity or repetition relate to work involvement and misbehavior?

Some findings: 1. Teachers that maintained a positive valence for academic activities with a verbal challenge and fun expectation expressions like “This next one is going to be fun, I know you will enjoy it,”  “You’re going to need your thinking caps for the next one, it’s tricky” increased work involvement and reduced pupil deviancy in both recitation and seatwork settings. 2. Teacher programing reduced satiation by learning- related variety {recitation plus seatwork}. 3. Pupil felt progress in learning {longer learning activity} was a more important anti- satiation factor for older children than younger children. 4. Variety {short term learning situation} may be more salient for younger children.5. Seatwork variety correlated with behavior in seatwork; with work involvement and freedom from deviancy.

In conclusion, classroom activities that require perseveration or repetition only are more quickly satiated than learning activities requiring thought and judgement. Running a classroom is a complicated endeavor. It has to do with developing a non-satiating learning program; programing for learner perceived progress; incorporating challenge and variety in learning activities.

 Additional information can be found in Kounin, Jacob S.  Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms. Holt ,Rinehart and Winston Inc.