Flanders’ interaction analysis category system (FIACS) - Categories, Procedures and Interpretation

Flanders’ interaction analysis category system (FIACS) - Categories, Procedures and Interpretation

1. Flanders’ Interaction Analysis Category System (FIACS) – categories, procedures and interpretation Suresh Babu G Assistant Professor

2. Meaning of Interaction Interaction is the sharing of ideas and thoughts between two or more than two people . Type of interaction verbal interaction N on-verbal interaction

3. Classroom Interaction The  classroom interaction mainly describes the content of behaviour or social interaction in the classroom

4. Characteristics of Classroom Interaction It is a practice that allows enhancing the students’ skills. It improves the relationship between teacher and students. It describe the interaction in the classroom and it helps students to develop thinking critically and sharing their views. The classroom verbal interaction can be made more effective. The teacher can increase student participation in his teaching. The direct behavior of teacher may be shifted to indirect behavior, which is more suitable in democratic way of life.

5. Objectives of Classroom Interaction  The teaching-learning situations in the class-room involve interaction between the teacher and the students.  It aims at meaningful communication among the students  target language.  It also aims at probing into the learner’s prior learning ability and his way of conceptualising facts and ideas.  The practice will help the teacher to have a detailed study of the nature and the frequency of student interaction inside the classroom.  It provides a reliable assessment of what goes on inside the class-room in terms of teaching and learning.

6. Interaction analysis Interaction analysis is a process of encoding and decoding a pattern of interaction between the communicator and the receiver.  Encoding helps in recording the events in a meaningful way and decoding is used to arrange the data in a useful way and then analyzing the behaviours and interactions in the classroom interaction. Theoretical Assumptions of Interaction Analysis  ( i ) Predominance of verbal communication  (ii) Higher reliability of verbal behavior   (iii) Consistency of verbal statements (iv) Teacher’s influence  (v) Relation between students and teacher  (vi) Relation between social climate and productivity (vii) Relation between class-room climate and learning (viii) Use of observational technique  (ix) Role of feedback (x) Expression through verbal statement

7. Class-room interaction analysis  Class-room interaction analysis refers to a technique consisting of objective and systematic observation of the class-room events for the study of the teacher’s class-room behavior and the process of interaction going inside the class-room.   According to  Dr.  S.K. Thakur, class-room interaction analysis “may be defined as an instrument which is designed to record categories of verbal interaction during, or from, recorded teaching learning sessions. It is a technique for capturing qualitative and quantitative dimensions of teacher’s verbal  behavior  in the class-room.”

8. Techniques for Interaction analysis   There are four important techniques to observe the interaction systematically.  These are:  1. Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS)  2. Reciprocal Category System (RCS)  3. Equivalent Talk Categories (ETC)  4. Verbal Interaction Category System (VICS) Flanders Interaction  Analysis Technique is most suitable and widely used technique in the field of research all over the world.

9. Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS)  Flanders’ system is an observational tool used to classify the verbal behavior of teachers, and pupils as they interact in the classroom Flanders described interaction analysis as the process of observing, recording & counting events that occur in a situation involving interaction

10. Category Number Activity Teacher Talk Response 1 Accept Feelings 2 Praises or Encourages 3 Accepts or Uses Ideas of Pupils 4 Ask Questions Initiation 5 Lecturing 6 Giving Direction 7 Criticizing or Justifying Authority Pupil Talk Response 8 Pupil Talk in Response to Teacher Initiation 9 Pupil Talk Initiated by the Pupil Silence 10 Silence or Confusion Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories System (FIACS) 

11. Flander’s Interaction Analysis   Categories

12. OBSERVATION PROCEDURE Observer sits in the classroom in the position best suited for hear and see the participants. 20-25 observations per minute (min 3 per Second). Observer writes down the category numbers as they occur

13. Procedure of Flander’s Interaction Analysis There are two process Encoding process Decoding process Encoding Process Memorize the code number Place of sitting Recording the category number

14. Ground Rules to be O bserved in Encoding P rocess Rule 1: When it is not certain in which of two or more categories a statement belongs, choose the category that is numerically farthest from the category 5. For e.g., if an observer is not sure whether it is 2 or 3 then choose 2. If in doubt between 5 and 7, he chooses 5. Rule 2: If the primary tone of the teacher’s behavior has been consistently direct or consistently indirect, do not shift into an opposite classification unless a clear indication of shift is given by the teacher. This rule is often called the rule of the biased, unbiased observer. Rule 3: An observer must not concern with his own biases or with the teacher’s intent. If a teacher attempts to be clever, pupils see his statements as criticism of pupils; the observer sues category 7, rather than category 2. This rule has particular value when applied to the problem of helping teachers to gain insight by their own behavior, e.g., ‘I was trying to praise them’ I wanted them to answer that question’. Rule 4: If more than one category occurs during the three seconds interval, then all category used in that interval are recorded. If no change occurs within three seconds, then repeat category number.

15. Decoding process After encoding the classroom events into ten-category system 10x10 matrix table is prepared for decoding the classroom verbal behavior. The generalized sequence of the pupil-teacher interaction can be estimated in this matrix table. It indicates, what form a pair of categories. The first number in the pair indicates the row and the second number shows the column for example (10-6) pair would be shown by a tally in the cell formed by row 10 and column 6. For example the observer has written down the code numbers beginning with 6 as follows: 6,10,5,1,4,8,8,2,3,6,4,8,9,7 Example

16. Tabulating a Matrix T abulate these observations in a 10 into 10 matrix, the first step is to make sure that the entire series begins and ends with the same number. The convention is to add 10 to the beginning and end of the series, unless 10 is already present. So our earlier series now become 10,6,10,5,1,4,8,8,2,3,6,4,8,9,7,10. The observations are now entered in a 10x10 matrix so that the sum of column one equals the sum of row one, the sum of column 2 equals the sum of row 2, etc. The numbers are tallied in the matrix one pair at a time. The first pair in this case is 10-6; the tally is placed in row 10, column 6 cell. The second pair is 6-10, tally this in row 6, column 10 and so on. ‘N’ always will be tabulated by N-1 tallies in the matrix. In this case, we started a series of sixteen numbers and the series produce 15 tallies in the matrix 

17. Interpreting the Matrix No classroom interaction can be ever recreated. It is part of a moment in history. The purpose of interaction analysis is to preserve selected aspects of interaction through observation, encoding, tabulating and then decoding. The Proportion of T eacher T alk, Pupil T alk, and Silence or Confusion: The proportion of tallies in columns 1,2,3,4,5,6and 7, columns 8,9 and column 10 to the total tallies indicates how much the teacher talks, the student talks and the time spent in silence or confusion.

18. Percentage of Teacher Talk Percentage of Teacher Talk = x100 Where N = Total Number of tallies indicates Percentage of Pupil Talk Percentage of Pupil Talk = x100 Percentage of Silence Percentage of Pupil Talk = x100  

19. Teacher Acceptancy Ratio - if it is 1 it shows full acceptance of feeling by teachers Teacher Acceptancy Ratio Teacher Acceptancy Ratio = Pupil Response Ratio - if it is 1 it shows full from students Pupil Response Ratio Pupil Response Ratio =  

20. The ratio between indirect influence and direct influence The sum of column 1,2,3,4, divided by the sum of columns 5, 6, 7 gives this ratio. If the ratio is 1 or more than 1, the teacher is said to be indirect in his behavior. This ratio, therefore, shows whether a teacher is more direct or indirect in his teaching. Indirect to Direct Influence Ratio =  

21. The ratio between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement The sum of column 1, 2, 3 is to be divided by the sum of the columns 6, 7. If the ratio is more than 1 then the teacher is said to be good Positive to Negative Reinforcement Ratio =  

22. Student’s Participation R atio The sum of columns 8 and 9 is to be divided by total sum. The answer will reveal how much the students have participated in the teaching-learning process. Pupil Response Ratio =  

23. Teacher Questioning Teacher Questioning = x100  

24. Study State Ratio = Pupil Study State Ratio = Teacher Study State Ratio =  

25. Steady State C ells Content Cross Cell The cell corresponding to the numbers 4 and 5 in the column and the row are known as ‘content cross’ cells. If these cells are overloaded they reflect the teacher’s emphasis on the subject matter Content Cross Ratio =  

26. Constructive integration cells and vicious cells Two areas that are most sensitive to the positive and negative aspects of social skill is the teacher-student relationship. Area A might be called “Constructive Integrative Cells” while area B is called the “Vicious Cells”. The cells corresponding to number 1,2 and 3 are known as constructive integration cells. Cells of numbers 6 and 7 are known as vicious cells. These cells reveal the teacher’s attention to problems of classroom management and control as distinct from concern with the subject-matter

27. ADVANTAGES It is an objective and reliable technique of observing and analysing the verbal behaviour of a teacher and classroom interaction. It may help in understanding analytically what actually goes on in the classroom. It may help in determining the flow and the pattern of teaching behaviour . By providing feedback, it helps in acquiring the desirable patterns of teaching and modifying ones teaching behaviour . Through the use of this system, student teachers may practice and learn new desirable teaching behaviours quite unknown to the traditional teaching. It suppliments the training technique like micro teaching and team teaching. It can be used for undertaking research in several areas of teaching , teaching behaviour , pre-service and in-service education of teachers.

28. LIMITATIONS AND DEMERITS The system concentrates on verbal behaviour and does not describe the classroom interaction or teacher bahaviour in its totality. Out of ten categories, seven categories to teachers talk and just three to students talk. The use of this system envisages highly trained observers and interpreters. Equaling silence with confusion is not appropriate.