Abstract

According to the time on-task hypothesis, the amount of time an individual devotes to an instructional task determines the extent to which learning occurs. Therefore, time off-task hampers learning by limiting learning opportunities. Prior research has generally found a positive relationship between time on-task and achievement; however, the correlation strength is highly variable across studies. Differences in the ways in which time has been operationalised may be one factor contributing to the divergent results. We utilise an existing data set of twenty classrooms (K-4) to investigate whether operationalising time in a consistent manner will yield a stable association between on-task behaviour and learning. Overall, on-task behaviour was positively correlated with learning, controlling for gender, school type, and grade-level. However, this correlation was weak. Importantly, considerable variability in the correlation strength was observed, indicating variations in the prior literature cannot be attributed solely to issues of measurement.

摘要

根据任务时间假设，个人投入到教学任务上的时间量决定了学习发生的程度。因此，任务外的时间限制了学习机会，从而阻碍了学习。先前的研究普遍发现完成任务的时间和成就之间存在正相关关系；然而，不同研究之间的相关强度变化很大。时间运作方式的差异可能是导致不同结果的一个因素。我们利用包含 20 个教室 (K-4) 的现有数据集来调查以一致的方式操作时间是否会在任务行为和学习之间产生稳定的关联。总体而言，在控制性别、学校类型和年级水平的情况下，任务行为与学习呈正相关。然而，这种相关性很弱。重要的是，观察到相关强度的相当大的变化，表明先前文献中的变化不能仅仅归因于测量问题。